Negro's Riot

I think we're all spending too much time on the word 'Negro.' That's not what's offensive about the original post. What is offesnive beyond belief is what the rest of the post says. The stereotyping in his view of people of color is the ranting of a confirmed racist. I suspect he has been banned, else we would have heard more diatribes and defensive posturing by now.

0 Replies

Right you are, Merry.

0 Replies

dlowan wrote:

Oh my.

I am sorry I asked.

Look, the progenitor of this thread is either a nutty troll, or a sad bastid, and is offensive and all that.

I asked re negro only because I was ...absolutely separately from the obvious awfulness of the troll/sad bastid...curious about when the word transmogrified.

...and I repeat - if you really wanted to settle it in your mind, all you needed to do was try to address the very next group of blacks as such.

0 Replies

So what is the currently accepted term?

0 Replies

snood wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Oh my.

I am sorry I asked.

Look, the progenitor of this thread is either a nutty troll, or a sad bastid, and is offensive and all that.

I asked re negro only because I was ...absolutely separately from the obvious awfulness of the troll/sad bastid...curious about when the word transmogrified.

...and I repeat - if you really wanted to settle it in your mind, all you needed to do was try to address the very next group of blacks as such.

What a dumb and deeply provincial comment. Do I expect you to be up on the minutia of Australian reasonable usage?

Under what circumstances would I address the next group of blacks I see with any collective term whatsoever. Or any racial group thus?

Would you ever address a group of whites as "Hey, white people?" or Chinese people as "Hey, Chinese people?"

Not to mention that African Americans, while there are certainly such here, are not likely to be the next " group of blacks I see". They will most likely be Aboriginal Australians or Africans.

It would be surpassingly stupid to address the former with a term never remotely connected with them in anyone's mind, if I were odd enough to address them with any collective term, and I am unsure if current American mores apply to folk from Africa.

Given that the term Negro has changed from an acceptable to an unacceptable collective term it seems reasonable to ask about it.

Sheeesh.

Tell me, would I be angry or pleased if you walked up to me in the strreet and said, "Hey, gubba, can you tell me how to get to my hotel?"

Would a group of aboriginal people be pleased or offended if I referred to koori culture?

0 Replies

(Delurk .... I don't like this thread, but I keep staring at it kind of like I'd stare at an awful traffic accident. I may as well say something.)

snood wrote:

...and I repeat - if you really wanted to settle it in your mind, all you needed to do was try to address the very next group of blacks as such.

In your opinion, would their reaction to "How you negroes doing today?" be any different than their reaction to "How you African-Americans (or People of Colour, or ...) doing today?" I agree with dlowan: the test you suggest would make people angry whatever word you use, and they would be right to be angry. It does not tell us anything about the (im)proprietry of the name by which the group is addressed.

Personally, I have no problem with the word "negro". I have a big problem, however, with phrases like "She lied about it. She never got raped. " (without substantiation), and "when did blacks started respecting black women?", and "those animals".

0 Replies

Thomas wrote:

... I have a big problem, however, with phrases like "She lied about it. She never got raped. " (without substantiation), and "when did blacks started respecting black women?", and "those animals".

As do I, but I also have a problem with this:

lindatw wrote:

J_B: I consider myself a Christian,and do believe the idea of "hate the sin/love the sinner",but in the case of Kasaova,I don't see him as being anybody's victim,or influenced by anyone or anything. As an adult,he should be able to admit that he chooses to feel negatively about others.Anyone with a college degree,has been exposed to enough of the world to know that all races should be respected. I won't even begin to discuss the ugly word he used that pertains to homosexuals. What also bothers me is his coming on-line and using words and descriptions that are rude,and that he risked offending those he hardly knew.

P.S.: At least Kas provoked a lively discussion !!!

He's being judged by an American/European standard of education, society, and religion. This is a 23 year old 'adult' who is living in London with his Arab/Ethiopian parents in the middle of the 30-year old culture war, but we judge him as an educated adult, uninfluenced by anyone or anything, who should know better than to risk offending us nice folks. We know nothing of where he was educated, what specific theology he took his degree in, how long he has been in London, or anything else about him. Without trying to understand his background we perpetuate our naivety in understanding the cultural wars of the Middle East, even as it unfolds in England.

I'd rather understand WHY he feels the way he does through dialogue than assume I understand everything there is to know. Only through understanding the root cause can we hope to work toward change in the ongoing hatred and conflicts suffered in his community and in his homeland.

0 Replies

Very well said, J_B.

0 Replies

Hear hear J_B. I wish I had explained it as clearly - that resounds with me.

0 Replies

I'll admit I knew negro was out of favor for african american or afro american, but didn't until now understand it was somehow actually bad to use, say, re old reports on events... making it rather like its known negative derivative. Old fashioned, certainly. I haven't caught on that it is derogatory in my california environments, small as they may be.

I didn't and still don't know that People of Color has gained any foothold in real life conversation.

Black has been comfortable for most in my areas for quite a while. (I have two areas - greater LA including south LA, but not recent, and Venice, and north north, very, er, isolated and no, I didn't move here for that reason.) Maybe I am way out of it, I'll have to check.

All somewhat silly re racial breakdown genetically, words gather import as arrows in life, as we all know.

My niece is black- as visually understood in LA. Her mother was a tribal woman from Africa, her father an irish american. She is pretty open to all, but is attracted to people who are mixed, as she is - the more exotic the mix the better - as cool.

Long may she live and thrive, by herself or with whomever.

0 Replies

Uh oh, I've finally posted here.

I'll say, now that I am here, the topic post shouldn't have been gotten away with re the TOS. A vile spuming, offensive :

well, what does offensive actually mean?
I think it means that people as individuals or groups are adhominem'd in a blatant belligerant way. Not their opinions, but them.

I understand what seems to be the decision to engage and talk, and am for that, mostly - Thomas expressed it well.

On the other hand, I don't like any of us to face topic posts like this one. I don't like that at all.

Maybe I've entirely confused the Terms of Service.
So, if the guy is banned and we're still all talking about it, including potential future posts on his behalf, I see that.
If he isn't, I see it, but politely disagree.

I think.

Hairy question, actually.

0 Replies

Dlowan,
" You are right - you know nothing of what it is to be a black person in the US, and I know nothing about contemporary attitudes on race in Australia. For that reason it seems pretty uppity to me to be calling my comments on the subject "dumb" and "stupid".

From what I've seen being black in America for nearly half a century, the spoken and unspoken reactions a group of blacks would have to being addressed as "negros" by a white person would be bitter, and understandably so. That's all I meant. And I really am still amazed at how mightily the intelligent and enlightened (insert quotes as they are applicable) whites struggle with that.

It's the same struggle they have with trying to swallow why they cannot use the word "nigger" in a jovial way with their one or two black friends.

0 Replies

Snood, we struggle with it because we can't understand why we have to be the enemy, even now. If you can call your best friend a "nigger" with the purpose of the word being friendly and I have the same relationship with that person and call him that in the exact same context, I am a racist. Why? Why must be continue to be racially sepearated with different rules?

This is a very serious question which I wonder about often since I live in the Metro Detroit area and see this so often it hurts. Right now, with the mayoral election, it's popping up all over.

0 Replies

Well, Bella, it's not only African Americans. I have many Roma friends who call each other Gypsy and joke around. I laugh with them, but I would never ever call them that. I don't have the right. I may not have done anything to any of them in my lifetime, but unfortunately we carry identities with us, like it or not. And mine is that of the dominant majority that has been persecuting them for centuries. So while I may perceive it as personally unfair towards me to consciously have to make these distinctions, culturally it does make a lot of sense.
It's kinda like I can joke around with other Slovaks about how dumb and passive we are. But if somebody else says that, I'm on my guard and might get all defensive if not outright insulted. It's an insider/outsider thing.
Same with any distinctive group of people - be it fat people, cancer patients, short... whatever. They can crack jokes among themselves, but you'd think twice to use the same humor towards them. ....Well, that's actually a bad parallel, because race and ethnicity are not some 'condition' or a handicap. All i wanted to say is that it's about group identity, especially if part of that identity are painful memory of trauma inflicted by others, which may happen to describe your identity. Things get personal, such is the trick of our identities...

0 Replies

snood wrote:

Dlowan,
" You are right - you know nothing of what it is to be a black person in the US, and I know nothing about contemporary attitudes on race in Australia. For that reason it seems pretty uppity to me to be calling my comments on the subject "dumb" and "stupid".

From what I've seen being black in America for nearly half a century, the spoken and unspoken reactions a group of blacks would have to being addressed as "negros" by a white person would be bitter, and understandably so. That's all I meant. And I really am still amazed at how mightily the intelligent and enlightened (insert quotes as they are applicable) whites struggle with that.

It's the same struggle they have with trying to swallow why they cannot use the word "nigger" in a jovial way with their one or two black friends.

I called your comments on answering a simple question dumb because they were. And and rude. And deeply parochial. And do not try to twist my comment to make it seem as though I was calling your comments on being black in America dumb. I said no such thing.

I asked a question on a site which, last time I looked, was a knowledge and information exchange site.

Oddly enough, we are not all American, nor do our lives revolve around what is proper to do in America.

I asked a simple question about why and when a term became offensive.

You appear to have decided this was untoward in some way, and answered in a way I consider silly and unpleasant.

I said so.

Had YOU asked a simple question about what might be considered offensive in Oz I would happily have answered you to the best of my knowledge, and not been rude because you did not know.

As it happens, I DO know about nigger.

I would not have used negro, either, because I had a kind of sense this might be offensive. I was asking about this.

Oddly enough, I have some intelligence, and am actually able to work out for myself that it is different for a group of african americans to use nigger than it is for a white person... Rolling Eyes

I do not expect people to know everything about Australia. Why do you expect the world to know all about YOU?

0 Replies

more nodding at Dagmaraka.

I tried to find out when Negro became a pejorative -- according to this, it was 1968:

Quote:

1968 would be the year in which "Negroes" became "blacks." In 1965, Stokely Carmichael, an organizer for the remarkably energetic and creative civil rights group the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, invented the name Black Panthers, soon followed by the phrase Black Power. At the time, black, in this sense, was a rarely used poetic turn of phrase. The word started out in 1968 as a term for black militants, and by the end of the year it became the preferred term for the people. Negro had become a pejorative applied to those who would not stand up for themselves.

(Interesting read, in general):

http://www.wnyc.org/books/24134

0 Replies

Ah, thank you Soz for that explanation.

It is very helpful.

0 Replies

dagmaraka wrote:

Well, Bella, it's not only African Americans. I have many Roma friends who call each other Gypsy and joke around. I laugh with them, but I would never ever call them that. I don't have the right. I may not have done anything to any of them in my lifetime, but unfortunately we carry identities with us, like it or not. And mine is that of the dominant majority that has been persecuting them for centuries. So while I may perceive it as personally unfair towards me to consciously have to make these distinctions, culturally it does make a lot of sense.
It's kinda like I can joke around with other Slovaks about how dumb and passive we are. But if somebody else says that, I'm on my guard and might get all defensive if not outright insulted. It's an insider/outsider thing.
Same with any distinctive group of people - be it fat people, cancer patients, short... whatever. They can crack jokes among themselves, but you'd think twice to use the same humor towards them. ....Well, that's actually a bad parallel, because race and ethnicity are not some 'condition' or a handicap. All i wanted to say is that it's about group identity, especially if part of that identity are painful memory of trauma inflicted by others, which may happen to describe your identity. Things get personal, such is the trick of our identities...

Same here with aboriginal people.

Though, if you know an aboriginal person very well, and that is their style of humour, you can josh about "blackfella" vs "whitefella", and it can be a kind of running joke in multi racial groups.

A white person would NEVER, if they had any sense, initiate such playfulness, though, and would be very careful in responding to it.

0 Replies

I just don't get it. A friend is a friend to me, regardless of color or background and if my friend say "hey there cracker!" and was black, I would take it just like I'd take it if if came from a white friend, provided it was in joke. I can't understand the seperation.

0 Replies

It's a power thing. The group with more power has to defer to the group with less power and follow cues. As in, as dlowan says, if it's instigated by the member of the minority group, it can be followed, but too dangerous to be instigated.

0 Replies

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know