Another article.... discusses Dem Senator Byrd saying "white n*****" talking about low-income whites and Dem Lt Gov of California Bustamante accidentally saying "n*****" at the podium of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists... Again, where was all the publicity??
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Slip or Slur?: The Explosive Political Power of the N-Word
It was a big day for the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. Their annual awards dinner and scholarship fund-raiser in Emeryville, California, was also a celebration of Black History Month, and the lieutenant governor of California, Cruz Bustamante, was on hand to give the keynote speech.
The highest-ranking Latino in California politics has made black and brown coalitions one of his aims in governance. Bustamante's attendance at the dinner was a badge of honor, but his speech, which focused on the labor work of A. Philip Randolph, degenerated into a racial insult when Bustamante said "nigger" in the middle of rattling off the titles of organizations that had "Negro" in them.
"It was 'Negro labor organization this,' and 'Negro labor organization that,'" said James Bryant, a San Francisco labor organizer who was at the dinner. "Then it was 'the nigger labor organization.'" One hundred people walked out of the function and a cloud rolled in over the political career of the lieutenant governor. Bustamante granted interviews with various newspapers to apologize for his remarks. He also called various black political leaders, including San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and US Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), to apologize.
A week later Bustamante decided to speak at a public rally against racial slurs, to defuse the controversy. He told the audience of black teens he had made a mistake and slipped. "I stumbled over a word," Bustamante said. "The word came out garbled in a way that sounded rotten."
Most of the state's black political leaders have accepted Bustamante's apology and excused him for his remark. "Most people I talked to recognized the slip," said William Lucy, the president of the National Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. "I think that we should try to move beyond it."
A number of activists and leaders like Lucy cite Bustamante's work to build bridges between the African American and Hispanic communities. Others wonder if black leadership should hold Bustamante accountable for his words the way some black political leaders have been made to explain their behavior, sometimes ad nauseum, when they have made statements that gave offense.
"We have to hold politicians accountable for their actions, and if we don't do that, what is our struggle for?" said Peggy Watts, co-chair of the Service Employees International Local 790's African American Caucus, who was at the Trade Unionists' dinner.
"Cruz Bustamante is not afforded special rights or shielded from accountability because he's the lieutenant governor," said Shannon Reeves, head of the Oakland NAACP, which includes Emeryville. "He can call it a 'slip,' but I call it an appalling demonstration of disrespect for which he must be held accountable."
Various linguists and speech professors have offered explanations as to how such slips can occur. "The N-word is so close to 'Negro' -- in other words, it is stored so close to it in the brain because of the similar shape and related meaning that fatigue or just chance could easily lead to such a slip up," said John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
Also at Berkeley, Robin LaKoff, author of The Language War, said that since Bustamante is bilingual, speaking English and Spanish, he could have mispronounced the vowel in the word "Negro" to make it sound like "nigrah" because "if you are a speaker of Spanish and English, it is easier to make a slip of the tongue," according to LaKoff. "In English we can have two vowels that mean different words. That is not the case in Spanish."
Lakoff said that Bustamante could have also been concentrating so hard on not saying the word that he mispronounced the similar word. "If you are really worried that you might stumble on this word, that is exactly what you will do," said Lakoff. "This is what might have happened: because he did not want to do it, it happened" -- like when somebody tells you not to think about a pink elephant.
In the past, political and religious leaders like Senator John McCain, Ross Perot, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Minister Louis Farrakhan have all had to explain why they have used words that were offensive to one ethnic group or another.
Oakland NAACP head Reeves and others said that despite Bustamante's record, he should be held to the same standard and should explain himself. "A word doesn't just tumble out of your mouth if it's not a part of your vocabulary," Reeves maintained, adding that he didn't believe that Bustamante would intentionally go up in front of nearly 400 African Americans at a Black History celebration and offend them -- but the word rolled off his tongue so fast, it appeared that it might be a word he uses all the time.
"Jack Kemp, a Republican, is known to have a strong civil rights record and has spent a large portion of his career to revitalize black communities. If he would have made the same mistake as Bustamante, he would have been crucified by African American leadership," said Reeves.
Two weeks after Bustamante's remarks, US Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a Democrat, made emphatic use of the phrase "white nigger" on the nationally televised Fox News Sunday to describe low-income whites. The Fox anchor sat in silence. Byrd, who has regretfully admitted that he was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, issued a press release after the show to apologize for the remark. After NAACP president Kweisi Mfume issued a press release condemning Byrd's use of the n-word, the story went on the back burner of most media outlets.
Could it be that the defense of Bustamante and failure to condemn Byrd seriously comes down to party politics? Both men are high-ranking Democrats. Most civil rights groups look favorably upon the Democratic Party. It seems as if both men were given a pass. This is completely different from the reaction Jesse Jackson received from Jewish advocacy groups after he made his infamous "Hymie Town" remark (an off-handedly derogatory reference to New York City's powerful Jewish electorate) to a reporter during his 1984 presidential run.
Although Jackson had been an advocate for Jewish causes (e.g., leading a march opposing neo-Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago) he was condemned by many Jewish groups. His immediate apology from the campaign trail notwithstanding, he was unequivocally branded an anti-Semite in many quarters, and the issue continued to be raised for several years thereafter. He was held accountable.
Similarly, "when public figures speak in disrespectful terms to the black community, they must be held accountable," said Reeves.
This has not happened in either the Bustamante or Byrd cases. In fact, it seems as if the word "nigger" or "nigga" has come back in vogue on the American popular culture scene, despite years of pleas to stop using the word from people of all ideological stripes in the black community. Comics such as Chris Rock and others use the word liberally, along with rappers, who use the word at will. But the use of this word in American popular culture is nothing new.
"It's been literally beaten into our heads for more than 400 years," said Clifford Ray Gahagan, author of the book Why Should I Be Called Nigger?. He called the word the most harmful and enduring legacy of slavery, a word that shouldn't be uttered at all. "We have to renounce and denounce use of the n-word."
While he believes that Bustamante made a verbal slip, Joe Tuman, a California State U-San Francisco professor, said this kind of incident highlights the need to talk about the meaning and the power of words. "It is not being 'politically correct' to talk about this; it is legitimate because words can be tools of oppression used to keep people down."
Most political analysts agree that the gaffe won't be held against Bustamante by black voters. He has apologized to black leaders across the state, and his record shows that bridging racial divides is one of his goals as an elected official. "I don't think he will be hurt by this politically," said Dr. Robert Smith, author of We Have No Leaders. "If this had been a private conversation, that would be one thing; but I wouldn't think he would come to a Black History celebration and deliberately use the word."
This issue could be symptomatic of tensions in the delicate balance between the African American and Hispanic communities in California as the former loses political power while the latter gains. "Blacks and Hispanics need each other, and if this issue had exploded, it would have led to the diminution of the strategic alliance between the two communities," said Percy Hintzen, the head of the Black Studies Department at UC Berkeley.
Reeves said that he and other blacks in the state would be watching Bustamante closely in the future. "The true test of Bustamante's commitment to the African American community will be during redistricting in California," said Reeves. "Will he support redrawing black districts in California to become predominately Latino districts, thus diminishing black political power in California even more?"
The Bustamante incident, along with Senator Byrd's statements, demonstrates the explosive power of words, even uttered unintentionally, to incite and injure people.
"Words hurt, even if they're unintended," Bustamante acknowledged at the anti-slur rally. "They can be used to sow disruption."
It was a big day for the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. Their annual awards dinner and scholarship fund-raiser in Emeryville, California, was also a celebration of Black History Month, and the lieutenant governor of California, Cruz Bustamante, was on hand to give the keynote speech.
The highest-ranking Latino in California politics has made black and brown coalitions one of his aims in governance. Bustamante's attendance at the dinner was a badge of honor, but his speech, which focused on the labor work of A. Philip Randolph, degenerated into a racial insult when Bustamante said "nigger" in the middle of rattling off the titles of organizations that had "Negro" in them.
"It was 'Negro labor organization this,' and 'Negro labor organization that,'" said James Bryant, a San Francisco labor organizer who was at the dinner. "Then it was 'the nigger labor organization.'" One hundred people walked out of the function and a cloud rolled in over the political career of the lieutenant governor. Bustamante granted interviews with various newspapers to apologize for his remarks. He also called various black political leaders, including San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and US Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), to apologize.
A week later Bustamante decided to speak at a public rally against racial slurs, to defuse the controversy. He told the audience of black teens he had made a mistake and slipped. "I stumbled over a word," Bustamante said. "The word came out garbled in a way that sounded rotten."
Most of the state's black political leaders have accepted Bustamante's apology and excused him for his remark. "Most people I talked to recognized the slip," said William Lucy, the president of the National Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. "I think that we should try to move beyond it."
A number of activists and leaders like Lucy cite Bustamante's work to build bridges between the African American and Hispanic communities. Others wonder if black leadership should hold Bustamante accountable for his words the way some black political leaders have been made to explain their behavior, sometimes ad nauseum, when they have made statements that gave offense.
"We have to hold politicians accountable for their actions, and if we don't do that, what is our struggle for?" said Peggy Watts, co-chair of the Service Employees International Local 790's African American Caucus, who was at the Trade Unionists' dinner.
"Cruz Bustamante is not afforded special rights or shielded from accountability because he's the lieutenant governor," said Shannon Reeves, head of the Oakland NAACP, which includes Emeryville. "He can call it a 'slip,' but I call it an appalling demonstration of disrespect for which he must be held accountable."
Various linguists and speech professors have offered explanations as to how such slips can occur. "The N-word is so close to 'Negro' -- in other words, it is stored so close to it in the brain because of the similar shape and related meaning that fatigue or just chance could easily lead to such a slip up," said John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
Also at Berkeley, Robin LaKoff, author of The Language War, said that since Bustamante is bilingual, speaking English and Spanish, he could have mispronounced the vowel in the word "Negro" to make it sound like "nigrah" because "if you are a speaker of Spanish and English, it is easier to make a slip of the tongue," according to LaKoff. "In English we can have two vowels that mean different words. That is not the case in Spanish."
Lakoff said that Bustamante could have also been concentrating so hard on not saying the word that he mispronounced the similar word. "If you are really worried that you might stumble on this word, that is exactly what you will do," said Lakoff. "This is what might have happened: because he did not want to do it, it happened" -- like when somebody tells you not to think about a pink elephant.
In the past, political and religious leaders like Senator John McCain, Ross Perot, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Minister Louis Farrakhan have all had to explain why they have used words that were offensive to one ethnic group or another.
Oakland NAACP head Reeves and others said that despite Bustamante's record, he should be held to the same standard and should explain himself. "A word doesn't just tumble out of your mouth if it's not a part of your vocabulary," Reeves maintained, adding that he didn't believe that Bustamante would intentionally go up in front of nearly 400 African Americans at a Black History celebration and offend them -- but the word rolled off his tongue so fast, it appeared that it might be a word he uses all the time.
"Jack Kemp, a Republican, is known to have a strong civil rights record and has spent a large portion of his career to revitalize black communities. If he would have made the same mistake as Bustamante, he would have been crucified by African American leadership," said Reeves.
Two weeks after Bustamante's remarks, US Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a Democrat, made emphatic use of the phrase "white nigger" on the nationally televised Fox News Sunday to describe low-income whites. The Fox anchor sat in silence. Byrd, who has regretfully admitted that he was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, issued a press release after the show to apologize for the remark. After NAACP president Kweisi Mfume issued a press release condemning Byrd's use of the n-word, the story went on the back burner of most media outlets.
Could it be that the defense of Bustamante and failure to condemn Byrd seriously comes down to party politics? Both men are high-ranking Democrats. Most civil rights groups look favorably upon the Democratic Party. It seems as if both men were given a pass. This is completely different from the reaction Jesse Jackson received from Jewish advocacy groups after he made his infamous "Hymie Town" remark (an off-handedly derogatory reference to New York City's powerful Jewish electorate) to a reporter during his 1984 presidential run.
Although Jackson had been an advocate for Jewish causes (e.g., leading a march opposing neo-Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago) he was condemned by many Jewish groups. His immediate apology from the campaign trail notwithstanding, he was unequivocally branded an anti-Semite in many quarters, and the issue continued to be raised for several years thereafter. He was held accountable.
Similarly, "when public figures speak in disrespectful terms to the black community, they must be held accountable," said Reeves.
This has not happened in either the Bustamante or Byrd cases. In fact, it seems as if the word "nigger" or "nigga" has come back in vogue on the American popular culture scene, despite years of pleas to stop using the word from people of all ideological stripes in the black community. Comics such as Chris Rock and others use the word liberally, along with rappers, who use the word at will. But the use of this word in American popular culture is nothing new.
"It's been literally beaten into our heads for more than 400 years," said Clifford Ray Gahagan, author of the book Why Should I Be Called Nigger?. He called the word the most harmful and enduring legacy of slavery, a word that shouldn't be uttered at all. "We have to renounce and denounce use of the n-word."
While he believes that Bustamante made a verbal slip, Joe Tuman, a California State U-San Francisco professor, said this kind of incident highlights the need to talk about the meaning and the power of words. "It is not being 'politically correct' to talk about this; it is legitimate because words can be tools of oppression used to keep people down."
Most political analysts agree that the gaffe won't be held against Bustamante by black voters. He has apologized to black leaders across the state, and his record shows that bridging racial divides is one of his goals as an elected official. "I don't think he will be hurt by this politically," said Dr. Robert Smith, author of We Have No Leaders. "If this had been a private conversation, that would be one thing; but I wouldn't think he would come to a Black History celebration and deliberately use the word."
This issue could be symptomatic of tensions in the delicate balance between the African American and Hispanic communities in California as the former loses political power while the latter gains. "Blacks and Hispanics need each other, and if this issue had exploded, it would have led to the diminution of the strategic alliance between the two communities," said Percy Hintzen, the head of the Black Studies Department at UC Berkeley.
Reeves said that he and other blacks in the state would be watching Bustamante closely in the future. "The true test of Bustamante's commitment to the African American community will be during redistricting in California," said Reeves. "Will he support redrawing black districts in California to become predominately Latino districts, thus diminishing black political power in California even more?"
The Bustamante incident, along with Senator Byrd's statements, demonstrates the explosive power of words, even uttered unintentionally, to incite and injure people.
"Words hurt, even if they're unintended," Bustamante acknowledged at the anti-slur rally. "They can be used to sow disruption."
http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index_20010319.htm