Never thought I'd live to see this day..
Feb 25th 2019, 12:04 am
#16
Joined: Feb 2012
Location: Not in Paris
Posts: 18,195
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
Well, not everywhere, of course. For me, growing up in Australia in the 1940s & '50s, a black person ("blackfella") was a full-blood Australian aborigine. And I seem to recall reading somewhere that the original use, in British English at least, of what we must call "the N-word", was for Indian-Indians in and from India. (Is that correct?) The US and UK usage would have derived from the African slave-trade. I myself have never considered "black" as having any racial connotation, except in the US and UK. Not even in the West Indies, as I indicated before.
It's a corruption of negro, which is Spanish for black and originally referred to any dark skinned person. Its use as a perjorative came later.
Feb 25th 2019, 12:13 am
#17
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: May 2012
Location: Cayman Islands
Posts: 5,002
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
Yes, indeed, but to which people(s) was the English variant of the Spanish word first applied in English? In writing, let's say. I have an idea Kipling used it - as a descriptive, not as a pejorative - but he wouldn't have been the first.
Feb 25th 2019, 1:27 am
#18
Joined: Feb 2012
Location: Not in Paris
Posts: 18,195
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
With its current spelling? 1800s, to those of Sub Saharan African origin. Mark Twain springs to mind.
Feb 25th 2019, 1:50 am
#19
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: May 2012
Location: Cayman Islands
Posts: 5,002
Feb 25th 2019, 2:11 am
#21
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: May 2012
Location: Cayman Islands
Posts: 5,002
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
Oh yes, I'm sure you're right! Although... the word is used more than you might think, down here - as a term of social disparagement, but with no conscious racial function. Never by white expats, under any circumstances, but the natives of all colours are surprisingly tolerant of its use. When we were newcomers here forty years ago we were invited to the home of a coloured Caymanian family for a meal. There weren't enough chairs for everybody, and being new I hesitated to take one of them. One of the other guests - a native Caymanian, but white - waved me into the last chair, saying cheerfully, "the floor's good enough for us n.......s" and sat there. Nobody reacted in any way. It shocked me rigid at the time, though I've gotten used to it since. Well, more or less!
Feb 25th 2019, 1:32 pm
#22
Joined: Dec 2001
Location: Dixie, ex UK
Posts: 52,448
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
Regrettably, in the USA - and in Britain, too, these days - a person is often described as "black" when he or she has the barest trace of African blood. I think it was the slave-owners in the British American colonies who first did that, and it's a shame that Western descendants of Africans choose to continue the fiction. So a light-brown person with African blood is called "black" ….! …..
Feb 25th 2019, 4:51 pm
#23
Joined: Feb 2012
Location: Not in Paris
Posts: 18,195
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
I don’t think my 1% is going to count for much if I try and pull an Elizabeth Warren. I’m the whitest man alive.
Feb 25th 2019, 4:56 pm
#26
Account Closed
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 2
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
With Reparations on the horizon could be a worthwhile investment.
Feb 25th 2019, 6:12 pm
#27
Joined: Feb 2012
Location: Not in Paris
Posts: 18,195
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
The idea that I am eligible for reparations because my great-great-great-great grandmother was a slave in Maryland 200 years ago just shows what a ludicrous concept it is.
Feb 25th 2019, 6:25 pm
#28
Account Closed
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 2
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
Feb 25th 2019, 6:29 pm
#30
Joined: Dec 2001
Location: Dixie, ex UK
Posts: 52,448
Re: Never thought I'd live to see this day..
It's been on the horizon for decades, but no matter how long you keep on walking, you never reach the horizon. Discussion of reparations for slavery more than 150 years, and at least 3-4 generations, later is just political rhetoric and quite frankly nothing more than mooting of a blatant electoral bribe!