[78-L] ^^An apology to hopefully end the N-word discussion Re: Goodbye (from Michael), re: racist remarks (one person's opinions et all)

[Chris Zwarg]

Dear all,

although I repeatedly promised to not lose another word on the subject, Yves Francois' thoughtful post seems to require an answer, and

I HEREWITH APOLOGIZE FOR MY APPARENTLY OFFENDING USAGE OF EITHER OF TWO WORDS STARTING WITH THE LETTER "N" (which I will not repeat în full to avoid another round of blows). I also promise to add the definition "taboo" to the relevant entry in my 1990 edition of Collins' English Dictionary which I used while studying the language, which does list "N***o" as a general-usage term to describe members of various peoples with dark skin colour, current since the 16th century. "N****r" OTOH is listed as derogatory in several written sources I have consulted, and I have already apologized for using that slang expression rather than the other. Therefore, sorry also for my ignoring that usage has apparently changed so radically in less than 20 years - too much surrounding myself with more-than-80-year-old records and documents maybe.

Yves wrote:
>my problem is more than just the word itself, but the INTENT behind the word, as Tom so well put in a recent e mail. 

My intent was certainly not to smear Mr. B.O. as a person, nor as a member of his people, but rather to express my annoyance at the ubiquitous discussions about him and his skin colour. Why do professed anti-racists lose even ONE word about this?! I do not know the man except from media coverage - what can I seriously say about him, good or bad? I sincerely hope he will prove a better President of the US than some of his predecessors. I also hope that he will be able to show that he has no need to be singled out as the "first Afro-American US President" because he has more useful qualifications than his ethnicity and his outward appearance to stand on. Right now, the only interesting and laudable property about him seems to be his being non-white (that's why I sarcastically called him what I did), and I do feel that glorifying the man already before he has done *anything* in office is also a perverted kind of racism: "He is Afro-American, therefore he *must* be better than (white and inept) G.W.B." - that's all I hear and read in the media, and if that is an acceptable statement, the opposite should be also.

>PS: i have read Chris' remark re the history of the word, and do understand that the word has changed its nuance over the years. HOWEVER in the English language it is >quite simply inappropriate for anyone not of the Afro American* culture to use that term, when I was younger I would have gone in a tirade about this, and still feel an apology >would be appropriate (for the usage of the word, I do NOT wish to change his political point of view, that would make me a totalitarian and I am offended as well by those who >right away call him that, I am simply calling in the inappropriate behavior of using a racial prerogative term). To put it in another way, and BTW going back to the "Jazz >Singer" when Jolson did a blackface routine it would NOT be considered condescending because of the context of the times (there is film footage of the Ray Ventura band in >black face in 1947, and it was meant as a homage, not disparagingly. In 2009, it would not be, this is because both language and what a symbol means to a society >evolves,and BTW it cannot stay static, because people's minds do not stay static and the USAGE of a particular word or image evolves from the way society uses that term >or image.

I do not plead anybody's sympathy, but maybe my "monstrously offensive language" becomes less unbearable to some (and I am genuinely surprised it has not been taken in lighter spirit from the start on *this* list which has no purpose if not nostalgia and old-fashioned things!) if I explain that my whole work as a collector and preserver of old recordings and related cultural artifacts is driven by my being convinced that we are constantly losing something by "evolving" in the way Yves describes, and quite possibly that has an influence in my own less-than-current perception of certain subjects and phrases, and my liking for not generally currently indulged-in expressions. I feel we should try and accomodate the new *without* forgetting and disparaging the old - we can be (like I would describe myself) perfectly decent democratic citizens who wouldn't dream of bodily attacking or enslaving anybody for whatever reason, and yet use the full expressive range of a language if only (like I intended to do) for sarcastic effect. If (as Yves agrees) Jolson was not offensive in 1927, nor Ventura in 1947, because they and the audience they played to had no idea they might be, I find we should take them in the spirit in that they were made, rather than make sniggering remarks from a "superior" 2009 point of view and thereby deny us and others some of the cultural richness and variety we have at our disposal. It is a loss to current performers that (again in Yves' words) they apparently may *not* include certain words and makeups in their act in the same lighthearted spirit Jolson did. Why not? Have we become less intelligent than people in 1927 or 1947, that we can no longer separate theatrical characters (which are always stereotypes by definition, Chaplin's Tramp just as much as Punchinello or a minstrel-show "coon") and humour (even of the bitter and sarcastic variety) from real life? 

The "Internationale", the "Kol nidre" and Schubert's "Ave Maria" are good tunes and delightful to sing even if you're neither Communist, Jewish, nor Roman Catholic, and "All coons look alike to me" remains a funny ragtime ditty even if you're not a KKK member (in fact I doubt these perfectly unfunny individuals would have enjoyed it!). Listening to and laughing about it will not induce subsequent racist behaviour against Afro-American fellow citizens in a sane person, no more that listening to "God save the Queen" makes you a British Royalist. Sorry I cannot bring myself to ignore the positive qualities of certain works of art for the sake of being "non-offensive" (like the gentleman castigating me and others as Racist for not agreeing to his personal dislike of Jolson!), precisely because of my general *lack of* feeling superior over their creators. Society of course changes all the time, but who guarantees the changes are always for the better? If that were so, all of us should throw out our collections now, forget Beethoven and Armstrong, Lincoln and Voltaire, Lao-Tse and Kant, and just gobble up whatever the current pop industry and think tanks throw at our feet. We should then also rewrite our literary and song heritage every ten years to confirm to current usage of vocabulary.... Conservative and Libertarian I am, Nazi and Racist I am not.

>PPS:   and finally (yes!!!)  I would like to see some of the people who have left this list and people who are tired of this to try to influence the list back to 78's, jazz, dance bands, opera, pre 1960 world music, folk musics, field recordings, classical and speeches made on 78's and from that era, this is an incredible resource

Thanks, Yves, for voicing this sentiment again, as I already did in earlier postings.

Chris Zwarg