12/28/2023 0 Comments Age of rebellion racesWe know that, theoretically, black Americans are "Americans." However, it's a rather intellectual point forīoth blacks and whites. The fact is that for most of us, this would require the same polite adjustment needed to spontaneously imagine a female surgeon. Now, keeping that in mind, imagine if a Martian came to our planet and asked to interview a representative member of several leading nations, and the representative of the United States was chosen by lottery, and that the person who came up was an African To puzzle over how the boy's father could be both the doctor and dead than to even consider that the surgeon was in fact the boy's mother, and thus a woman. In the 1970s, an anecdote used to circulate in which a man is killed in a car accident but his son lives and is taken to a hospital where the surgeon says, "I can't operate on him - he's my son." Most people were more likely Yet it was symbolic of larger things, whose significance Like Howard's gaffe, the niggardly episode in itself was a minor flap, which will surely be all but forgotten by the time this book is in your hands. In other words, the firing of David Howard was "a black thing." Whatever our opinions on what happened to David Howard, only in an African-American context is the image of a man cleaning out his desk for such an evanescent little flub even processible. He would then have been allowed to continue in his efforts to do good work. If Howard had made the equivalent slip-up in a Jewish, Asian, Latino, or even gay association, he would have been dutifully taken aside and informed that such a word was not the most felicitous choiceĪnd that he would be best advised not to use it in the future. That rhetorical question cut through the whole issue in its way, because in fact, there is no other ethnic group in the United States today whose sensibilities would lead to someone's summary dismissal for a mere unintended allusion to a racial epithetĪpplying to them. "How would another ethnic group react if you came close to the line with a phrase inappropriate to that group?" asked theįormer National Bar Association president. For many black observers, however, this was beside the point. Yet it was difficult not to ask whether a man deserved to be cast into unemployment because of this innocent and passing faux pas, especially a man who had dedicated his career to a troubled, predominantly black administration, and who had never shownĪny sign of racist bias. Twentieth century the word happens to have acquired the slang meaning of "sexually aroused," though, and as such it is now gracious to avoid using it in its original meaning. There are words like that - the original meaning of horny was "rough or calloused," and one formerly had this word at one's disposal in describing, among other things, voice quality. Its chance resemblance to nigger is such that many of us might quite justifiably choose to avoid it in favor of stingy, parsimonious, or penurious. Niggardly is, to be sure, an awkward little word. Things from the other person's shoes," he explained, "and I did not do that." A former president of the National Bar Association, a mostly black group, was uncompelled by theįact that the word is not a racial slur, fuming, "Do we really know where the Norwegians got the word?" Meanwhile, David Howard was contrite, considering his dismissal deserved. His official position being that in a predominantly black city with a history of racial tension, Howard's choice of words was grounds for dismissal, akin to being "caught smoking in a refinery that resulted inĪn explosion." Black talk radio was abuzz with indignation, almost unanimously in support of Williams's decision. Shortly thereafter, Mayor Williams curtly accepted Howard's resignation, The black coworker immediately stormed out of the room and would not listen to Howard's attempt to explain. Howard's coworkers were a white person and a black person. Unknown in England, and had been imported to the country by Scandinavian Viking invaders in the 800s, in whose tongue nig meant "miser." It has been used in English since the Middle Ages, when black people of any kind were Niggardly is a rather esoteric word meaning "stingy." Its resemblance to the racial slur nigger is accidental. In January 1999, David Howard, the white ombudsman to the newly elected mayor of Washington, D.C., Anthony Williams, casually said in a budget meeting with two coworkers "I will have to be niggardly with this fund because it's not going to be
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