RE: The "N" Word Topic Again

["Isaac, Oliver (Seattle)" <Oliver.Isaac@cas.honeywell.com>]

Like music it seems to be a generation thing.  I still prefer to be   
called black.


 ----------
From:  Thomas.Warren@PSS.Boeing.com
Sent:  Friday, November 14, 1997 12:01 PM
To:  beverly.laners@faa.dot.gov; jacksod@wdni.com;   
jme6905@serverp.ca.boeing.com; Paul.Barco@PSS.boeing.com;   
thomas.v.warren@boeing.com; john.a.gresham@boeing.com; Isaac, Oliver   
(Seattle)
Subject:  RE: The "N" Word Topic Again


What a waste of energy!
A nigger is a person who owns more CD's(music) than books. A person who
buys the best Scotch instead of a PC for his kids. Who worries about
what he or she is called instead of what he or she is(ontological
blackness). This issue is another example of a what Woodson called
the"Miseducation of the Negro". Kelly Miller was right when he said we
beg for what we need and buy what we want. Now we are begging for a
change that has little substance behind it. If we published our own
definitions, who would buy them?
I like the word Negro. Let's spend two decades discussing that term.
>
>
>  ----------
> From:  JACKSONC@wood.army.mil
> Sent:  Thursday, November 13, 1997 4:01 PM
> To:  blkdiamond@nbs.org; NUPENET@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject:  The "N" Word Topic Again
>
> My little brother sent me this article.  Interesting reading.  What do
>
> you
> think about the article.
>
> cj
>
> >> It's Defined Now Defy It
> >>
> >>  By Courtland Milloy
> >>
> >> Wednesday, October 15, 1997; Page B01
> >> The Washington Post
> >>
> >> A computer operator in Ypsilanti, Mich., recently discovered that
> the
> "n" word -- that's n-i-g-g-e-r -- is actually in the dictionary. And
> she
> wants it out.
> >>
> >> Delphine Abraham, who is black, has launched a petition drive to
> get
> the
> racial epithet removed from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.
>
>  She's
> getting lots of support, too, from the curator of the Museum of
> African
> American History in Flint, Mich., along with more than 2,000  others
> who
> have signed the petition.
>
> >> But count me out. I'm tired of black people getting upset when
> white
> people do something to us but then go around grinning and skinning
> when
> the insults and abuse come from our own.
>
> >> How on earth can any black person get upset because the word
> "nigger"
> is in the dictionary? Every time you turn on the television, go to the
> movies or listen to rap music on the radio, there is some black person
> screaming it.
> >>
> >> An especially common usage is the expression of disbelief --
> "Niggah,
> please" -- which some black comedians can't seem to say without
> sending
> spittle flying out into their laughing black audiences. You think
> white
> people aren't aware of this pervasive lack of self-respect? (Can you
> feel
> the spittle in your face?)
> >>
> >> The problem that Abraham and others have with "nigger" being in the
> dictionary is the definition, which is: "a black person -- usually
> taken
> to
> be offensive."
> >>
> >> Says Abraham, "I can't believe that in 1997, you can look up
> `nigger'
> in
> the dictionary, and it says a black person."
> >>
> >> And just who else would people be talking about when they use the
>
> word?
> >>
> >> The dictionary also includes "kike" and employs a similar style of
> defining it: "a Jew: a vulgar term of hostility and contempt." The
> word
> "wop" also is there. It means "an Italian or person of Italian
> >> descent:   an offensive term of hostility and contempt."
> >>
> >> The difference is that you don't hear Jews running around calling
> each
> other "kikes" or see Italians out on the street publicly degrading
> themselves.
> >>
> >> Black people use the "n" word everywhere, from their homes to their
> jobs. Just the other day I heard a girl introduce a boy to her friends
>
> with,
>  "This is my niggah."
> >>
> >> Some will say that such usage is an attempt by African Americans to
> claim the word as their own, thus freeing themselves from its historic
> ugliness -- the same as we did with the word "black," for example. But
>
> that
> is a dangerous rationalization.
> >>
> >> It's not a coincidence that the public expression of the "n" word
> has
> reached its greatest popularity among blacks at a time when
> internalized
> oppression -- our subconscious enemy within -- has become the greatest
> threat to black America.
> >>
> >> The most recent opinion polls on racial attitudes show that nearly
> one
> out of every three blacks now holds views about other blacks that are
> similar to the views held by racist whites: that blacks are dumber and
>
> more
> dangerous than any other group.
> >>
> >> Whites no longer need to call us names. We have been conditioned to
> do
> it to ourselves, and then go a step further by acting the part. The
> same
> black girls who think of "my niggah" as a term of endearment are the
> same
> ones getting abused and beaten up by those black men at a terrifying
>
> rate.
> >>
> >> Blacks may think it's an inside joke when they say of a black
> entrepreneur, "I don't trust that nigger," but the refusal of black
> people
> to do business with their own has made us the laughingstock of
> >> this capitalistic free world. Only when a black person says, "I'll
>
> kill
> that niggah," does it seem that he really means business.
> >>
> >> Which brings us to the black gangsta rappers. Their self-hating and
> misogynistic lyrics are being mimicked by black children like there is
> no
> tomorrow, which there may not be given the unprecedented rate of black
> self-destruction that is underway.
> >>
> >> You'd think African Americans would be doing some serious
> soul-searching and self-policing. Instead, our continuing
> preoccupation
> with what the white man thinks about us gets us riled up more than
> what
> we
> think of  ourselves.
> >>
> >> Thousands of angry black people have contacted Merriam-Webster
> after
> its
> definition of "nigger" was mentioned in the September issue of Emerge
> magazine. Meanwhile, blacks have no problem with the use of the "n"
> word
> on television and the radio and in the movies -- which have far larger
> audiences than your average dictionary.
> >>
> >> Instead of censoring the "n" word, I suggest that Merriam-Webster
> expand on it -- add five or six examples of what a nigger really is:
> 1) a
> fiction, a creation of the white man, a black who has come to believe
> the
> worst about him or herself and other black people; 2) a self-loathing
>
> creep
> conditioned to believe that the white man's ice is colder and that the
> white man's coal burns hotter; 3) one who is
> >> afraid of white people, a black who buck-dances and brown-noses his
>
> way
> to acceptance in white America; 4) awestruck by white women, a black
> man
> who thinks black women are not as beautiful; 5) one who uses white
> racism
> to excuse black irresponsibility; 6) blacks who kill other blacks at
> the
> drop of a hat.
> >>
> >> At this point, a mass movement against Merriam-Webster strikes me
> as
> futile. Let's say the "n" word gets cut from the book. How, then, do
> you
> get it out of the hearts and minds of black people?
> >>
> >> I say just accept that the "n" word exists and resolve that the
> best
> way
> to get rid of it is to stop acting like one......................
>
>
> "  When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it
> was
> difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I
> found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I
> couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my
>  family.
> Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is  myself,
> and
> suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
> I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have
>
>  made
> an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and
> I
> could indeed have changed the world."
> >>
> >>  -- An Unknown Monk 1100 A.D.
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