Re: AR's bad language (NB: some offensive language)


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Posted by Robert Dilley on January 22, 1999 at 21:46:44:

In Reply to: Re: AR's bad language (NB: some offensive language) posted by Dave W on January 21, 1999 at 20:38:25:

Dave W makes an important point. Words are not offensive in themselves: they are merely the symbols by which we convey thoughts to others. It is the thoughts behind them that can be hurtful. As long as people with darker-coloured skins are considered inferior, any word used to describe them will eventually take on an offensive tone and a new one will have to be sought. Originally "nigger" was the universal term, at least in the US, for someone of Negroid racial origin -- used even by peiople of that population. Then, when some people began to feel a little guilty about their attitudes, it was decided that "negro" was more acceptable. However, the underlying attitudes didn't change, so it, too, took on unpleasant overtones and was in turn replaced by "coloured" (still found in the NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Once again, attitudes overtook the word, "coloured" became insulting, and the acceptable word was "black" (a simple translation of "negro"). That is the word I still use, but there is increasing pressure to regard it also as unacceptable and to use the lengthier "Afro-American". And so it goes.... The relevance to the current debate on AR is that few if any people in the UK in AR's time would have found "nigger" offensive. Britain was racially largely uniform then: non-"whites" were curiosities but in no way subject to the degree of prejudice and discrimination they were in the US. By now, the British have been taught to find the word offensive. There are now many more people in Britain who will use the word offensively. However, you cannot go back and re-write literature to conform to current attitudes towards words. As others have pointed out already, explain it to the young and understand it yourself. My daughters think it funny that, as the only one in the family born on the sabbath, I am therefore "Bonny and blithe, and good and gay". They understand that "gay" has changed its meaning, and are quite capable of understanding that so has "nigger".


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