Posted by Robert Dilley on March 27, 2002 at 17:55:28 from 216.211.68.96:
In Reply to: Re: Forbidden Words posted by Adam Quinan on March 27, 2002 at 16:47:21:
I hope I may be forgiven repeating comments made a couple of years ago (for the benefit of new TarBoarders) and for sounding somewhat as if I were lecturing (I have just finished making these points to 180 first-year university students). Words are not offensive; it is the way they are used that makes them offensive. "Negro" used to be the accepted and acceptable term in the US for those with at least some recognisable genetic component from sub-Saharan Africa. This then became so associated with racial bigotry that "Colored" was promoted as inoffensive (and is still found in the pressure group NAACP -- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Then that term, too, became too associated with the likes of George Wallace, and "Black" (a simple translation of "Negro") was the accepted term. As that, too, attracted racist associations we had "Afro-American" until the term "Afro" was deemed iffy and we now have "African American". The point is that it matters not what you call people different from yourself: if the underlying behaviour does not change, the new word will quickly take on negative connotations. If the "African American" (the term carefully used throughout the recent Oscar ceremonies) is replaced by, say, Superior, it will not be long before you hear comments about "Those lazy, good-for-nothing Superiors"; "We had to move: Superiors were moving into our neighbourhood" and another word will have gone (as someone pointed out on this site, look at what has happened to gay).
The point of all this is to emphasise what other have already said: language has to be seen in the context of its time. Joseph Conrad was not trying to be offensive when he titled a novel "The N***** of the Narcissus" (presumably I cannot spell out the title on this site), nor was AR when he had a small boy exclaim "N*****s" at the sight of seemingly black faces in a photograph. It was the word most small boys, at least in Britain, would have used at the time.
I have a lot more I could say on this topic (you should hear me on the whole issue of "political correctness") but I suspect I have tried everyone's patience enough. Don't forget the city official in Washington DC who got fired for mentioning that his department's approach to budgeting would have to be "niggardly".