Text 16776, 46 rader
Skriven 2011-04-12 17:14:02 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
  Kommentar till text 16717 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
Ärende: Names will never hurt me...
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Roy Witt wrote to David Drummond on Monday April 11 2011 at 17:25:

RW> One of the big differences is that the US gave aid to the slaves who
RW> were freed, if they wanted it, while the Brazilians gave none. The US
RW> also offered free passage and even bought a country for those who
RW> would move there. None were so foolish as to go back to a place that
RW> enslaved them or their parents in the first place.

Actually, that's not quite right. Quite a number of former American slaves
actually did emigrate to Liberia (which, incidentally, wasn't "bought"), and
afterwards formed the ruling class of the place. They were eventually
overthrown by the natives.

RW> Those Brazilian slaves who were uneducated, which was all of them, had
RW> to find jobs and fend for themselves in a country that loathed them.
RW> Kinda like your aborigines were.

The strange thing is the fact that there's such racial mixing in Brazil
compared to the States, and (at least from what I hear and have seen on TV and
in movies) so little onus on being black or mulatto.

RW> It wasn't always acceptable. It was only acceptable in the south when
RW> niggers were slaves. But that wasn't the US per se' - it was the
RW> Confederate States of America that you should be speaking of when it
RW> comes to slavery.

Actually, the language has changed quite a bit, even in my lifetime. The word
"nigger" wasn't as isolated or regionally limited as you write, but was not
used in polite society even when I was a boy. However, the word "negro" _was_,
and up to perhaps the 1970s or 1980s was a perfectly normal and neutral word to
describe what now is politically correctly known as a "black" - although many
"blacks" are far from black.

Naturally, such words are interpreted differently, depending on whether a white
person or a black person uses them. A white person can insult a black person
nowadays by calling him/her a "negro", something that I still find perfectly
neutral and as non-insulting as the term "white" instead of "caucasian". On the
other hand, a black can often call another black a "nigger" without either one
batting an eyelash.

Such are the times we live in.

Cheers, Bob

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