Timeline for When and why did the N-word and "negro" go apart?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
29 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 6, 2021 at 0:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/1423433678617780228 | ||
| Jan 1, 2016 at 13:55 | comment | added | Hot Licks | It should be pointed out that, at least during the 1950s-70s, there was the word "nigra", which its users argued was simply a "relaxed" pronunciation of (the then proper) "negro", but was obvious to other observers to be a version of "nigger". | |
| Aug 28, 2014 at 13:00 | comment | added | Mitch | @martinf: The accepted culture on ELU is that taboo words (define how you like) are fair game in content (at least when quoted), but should be partially redacted in titles because titles are more visible to the general public (presumably including children and non-intellectuals). There has been much discussion and meta discussion about this topic, and that is the resulting practice here. | |
| Jul 2, 2014 at 2:34 | history | protected | tchrist♦ | ||
| Jun 19, 2014 at 22:50 | answer | added | Athanasius | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 6:15 | comment | added | Martin F | And why the long side-debate? Ask abut "Afro-Caribbean" somewhere else! | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 6:13 | comment | added | Martin F | Why wouldn't the question be: When and why did “nigger” and “negro” go apart? Are we not intellectuals? I'm offended by childish euphemisms like "the N-word"! | |
| Jan 19, 2014 at 6:07 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Jan 19, 2014 at 6:28 | |||||
| Jan 17, 2014 at 19:39 | history | edited | RegDwigнt | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 1 characters in body; edited tags; edited title
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| Jan 17, 2014 at 18:18 | comment | added | Hugo | Here is the ethnic group question from the England and Wales census. (And Scotland here.) | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 17:48 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | @Hugo far be it for me to suggest that Tarantino's film is an accurate recount of American history, but, I did read that Tarantino spent considerable time researching the period in detail. If nothing else the film reminded the general public why the terms nigger and negro are offensive today. The question of one group considering themselves superior than another and using language to distinguish these differences is nothing new or recent. It is in the nature of Man to boast his superiority over others in order to cover and deny his own insecurities. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 16:52 | comment | added | WS2 | Who says? On the 2011 Census Return, under ethnicity, Section D was entitled: Black/African/Caribbean/Black British. It was then subdivided into: African/Caribbean/ Any Other African or Caribbean background, please write in. So what is a suitable generic name for this overall category but 'Afro-Caribbean'? Let us imagine a person who is of mixed-race appearance. She doesn't know anything about her natural parents having been adopted following birth. How can she describe her ethnicity, other than Afro-Caribbean? | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 15:12 | vote | accept | SIMEL | ||
| Jan 17, 2014 at 13:10 | answer | added | Jon Hanna | timeline score: 17 | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 11:54 | comment | added | Jon Hanna | @WS2 AFAIU, "Afro-Caribbean" refers solely to those whose ancestry included people from the Caribbean whose ancestry in turn included people from Africa. That is, it doesn't include people who came to the UK from Africa by any other route. It can happen that such people are called Afro-Caribbean, due to the assumption that all black people in Britain are Afro-Caribbean (as indeed most are, and it would have been an even greater percentage from the 50s through to the 90s), much as Afro-Carribean Britons get called "African American" when they visit the US. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 11:00 | comment | added | WS2 | @oerkelens Because there has, in the last seven decades, been mass migration to Britain from the Carribbean. Such people are mostly descended from Africans who were taken there as part of the slave trade. But a number are of mixed descent. Many places around the world, administered by Britain in the 19th century, attracted migrants from India, China etc. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 10:24 | comment | added | anongoodnurse | @IlyaMelamed - they are very similar because their meanings are the same. They have diverged in connotation alone, as you have observed. oh, and good job reading. :) | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 10:21 | comment | added | SIMEL | @Mari-LouA, both terms are considered disrespectful now, but negro was not considered disrespectful until the recent 40 years, before it it was the prefered term, see the examples in the question. While nigger was considered a racial slur even then and the attitude toward it is much harsher than negro. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 10:17 | comment | added | SIMEL | @mplungjan and Susan, I read the wiki articles for both words. I linked to them in the question itself, yet I couldn't find a reason why there are two diffrent yet very similar words, and why their meaning is so diffrent. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 10:11 | comment | added | Hugo | @oerkelens: Because many African people were taken to the Carribbean during the slave trade. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 10:06 | comment | added | oerkelens | @WS2: Why does including a group of islands in Central America have anything to do with Europe, Africa or India???? That makes as much sense as using Afro-Antarctic. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 9:47 | comment | added | WS2 | Ultimately it is the privilege of black people themselves to decide what they want to be called, but the best term I have heard is 'African'. The favoured one in Britain, and the one you see on questionnaires etc is 'Afro-Carribbean'. This covers people and their descendants who have arrived in the UK direct from Africa, as well as the very large number who have come from the Carribbean. The importance of including 'Carribbean' in the ethnic description lies in the fact that some of those people are of mixed African/European/Indian descent. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 9:46 | comment | added | Hugo | I don't think we can use Tarantino as a historically accurate reference. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 9:44 | history | edited | Hugo | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Remove quotes around "N-word" because it's not literally about the euphemism
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| Jan 17, 2014 at 9:22 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jan 17, 2014 at 21:15 | |||||
| Jan 17, 2014 at 9:16 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | Didn't you see Tarantino's film, DJango Unchained? FWIW (and in my opinion) both terms are considered disrespectful. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 9:15 | comment | added | anongoodnurse | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro for the rest of the story. | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 9:02 | comment | added | mplungjan | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 8:53 | history | asked | SIMEL | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
