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A Few Responses on Offensive Language, Stick and Stones, and Political Correctness

Posted By: Daniel Murphy
Date: Tuesday, 23 November 2010, at 6:41 p.m.

In Response To: A Few Responses on Offensive Language, Stick and Stones, and Political Correctness (Steve Mellen)

I don't completely disagree with you, either, Steve, but I think Stick has a point. There are terms that are unquestionably current and inoffensive, and words that are dated, even antiquated. Today, "black" is inoffensive; "African American" is inoffensive; "Afro-American" is inoffensive but it makes me think the speaker didn't get the memo. Frederick Douglass used "colored," "Negro" and "black." That's mid-19th century. Booker T. Washington insisted on Negro with a capital N. But that's 100 years ago. Martin Luther King, Jr. called himself a Negro and the word was on the 2010 census form because that's what some black Americans still call themselves. Neither the United Negro College Fund nor the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are about to change their names, and there's absolutely no slur in "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf."

I guess where I do disagree with you, and where Stick's point is valid, is where you say that people "looking to be offensive" would use a more "hardcore" word. I think, in context, and Stick's pool hall example is serviceable, people "looking to be offensive" or harboring racist attitudes might well avoid a more "hardcore" word but say "Negro" or "colored" instead of "black" or "African American." And when you overhear that choice of words, you might well wonder: why that word instead of another? Because while language changes, every word has its historical baggage, and some words can -- not always, since both context and intonation matter -- have implications that other words don't. And I suppose where you live and what you've experienced matters, too. The US is a big country and not homogeneous. For me, "colored" is generally neutral, but I'd never refer to my black friends (or anyone else) as "colored" -- "colored" is what grandma's white friends called the gal who did their cleaning. And I recall -- and I bet for sure I'm not alone here -- acquaintances who would elaborately pronounce "Negro" in a way that screamed "oh look, notice how I didn't say the word I didn't say."

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