Newspaper editors love digging up dirt from the past. Even the New York Times plays both sides of the street. They endorse me one day, dig up a little dirt the next day.
Yesterday’s brouhaha was a photo the Times dug up from 1960-something or other, and an article where I was quoted using the N-word. Negro. Not nigger. I would never use that. Well, not since I used it on Bill when he told me about Monica Lewinsky.
The problem here is a generational thing. Back in the 60s it was still appropriate to use ‘coloreds‘ when talking about African-Americans. In mixed company we used ‘Negro.’ Frankly, we should have stopped at Negro because it fits better.
After all, colored doesn’t really work because regardless of our color we’re all colored one way or another. It’s as if the whites of a few hundred years thought they were absent any color. I wonder what they thought of sun tans.
Anyway, colored didn’t work for me back in high school and college, and doesn’t work today, of course. I prefer Negro. Black is just as wrong as white and colored.
African-American? Puhleeeze. Gimme a break, people. Cut your ties with the prehistoric past and move on. It’s the 21st century already. Like it or not, if you live here you’re a plain old American, just like me. Deal with it.
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