Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Relativismo del politically correct

Ricordavo Happy Days come telefilm disimpegnato, ma alcuni episodi
affrontano questioni sociali controverse in un modo piuttosto
esplicito per i tempi.
In un episodio del 1974
"1950's racial intolerance is explored from both sides of the aisle
after Howard Cunningham is asked to be best man at the wedding of a
black, former army buddy."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0596322/
In pratica la famiglia Cunningham deve battersi contro i pregiudizi
razziali dei vicini, in un quartiere esclusivamente bianco dove, per
dare un'idea, un nero che passeggia per strada viene subito fermato
dai poliziotti.
A un certo punto arriva Fonzie, che dice:
"So you're gonna have a bunch of black people in here, uhu?"
ma Ricky Cunningham lo riprende
"Well, Fonzie... I don't think that they like being called black. They
are Negroes."
Cioè, se il telefilm è fedele alla realtà, negli anni Cinquanta il
termine politicamente corretto era "negro", mentre "black" veniva
giudicato sconveniente.

 giudicato sconveniente.
Interesting point. I don't recall ever hearing "black" as a descriptive term 
for African Americans in the '50s. There was the term "blackface," for the 
makeup that Vaudeville and other performers used when parodying black singers 
and such, but where I lived, in the north, Boston, MA, the term used was 
"negro" or the pejorative "nigger." The latter was never used in my 
household. As a half-Sicilian/half Calabrese I was aware that some folks 
considered me and my folks if not black, "not necessarily white," either in 
those years.
-- 
Joe/Joey da New York

 wrote in message
news:a50c09ee-6f66-4046...@c34g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
Ricordavo Happy Days come telefilm disimpegnato, ma alcuni episodi
affrontano questioni sociali controverse in un modo piuttosto
esplicito per i tempi.
In un episodio del 1974
"1950's racial intolerance is explored from both sides of the aisle
after Howard Cunningham is asked to be best man at the wedding of a
black, former army buddy."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0596322/
In pratica la famiglia Cunningham deve battersi contro i pregiudizi
razziali dei vicini, in un quartiere esclusivamente bianco dove, per
dare un'idea, un nero che passeggia per strada viene subito fermato
dai poliziotti.
A un certo punto arriva Fonzie, che dice:
"So you're gonna have a bunch of black people in here, uhu?"
ma Ricky Cunningham lo riprende
"Well, Fonzie... I don't think that they like being called black. They
are Negroes."
Cio�, se il telefilm � fedele alla realt�, negli anni Cinquanta il
termine politicamente corretto era "negro", mentre "black" veniva
giudicato sconveniente.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Until about 1967, "colored" was the word most commonly used by blacks and
whites alike to describe blacks.
"Negro" was used often in writing or in formal situations, but was not at
all colloquial. The comedian Jimmy Walker has often said "There were no
black people in the 50s". What he meant was that they were not called black.
Around 1967, Ebony and Jet magazines, two popular magazines published by and
for blacks, ran polls asking readers what blacks should call each other.
"African American" and "black" were the two winners.
Joe from Massachusetts

 wrote in message
news:IjSlm.183879$3m2....@newsfe06.iad...

Don't forget that the most influential black organization in the US is the
"National Association for the Advancement of Colored People".
Joe from Massachusetts

 giudicato sconveniente.
S�, quell'� la battuta, perch� in 1974 il termine politicamente corretto 
era 'black'.

 era 'black'.
Sì, ho pensato anch'io a una certa sottile ironia. Però non proprio
una battuta per far ridere ad alta voce. In quel momento non si
sentono risate della live audience (live audience che tra parentesi si
perde completamente nella versione doppiata  in italiano, dove mancano
anche i rumori di scena!).

 mentre "black" veniva giudicato sconveniente.
Bada che "negro" non ï¿œ "nigger".
Mi pare un termine da intellettuali anni '30.
-- 
ï¿œï¿œï¿œ
 O 

 Bada che "negro" non è "nigger".
Claro! Non si parlava di "nigger" ma proprio di "negro", che negli
anni '50 era il termine più formale e rispettoso, tanto che Ricky
Cunningham riprende Fonzie che invece usa "black". Dopo qualche anno,
dagli anni '60, la situazione si è ribaltata e "negro" è caduto in
disgrazia, all'inferno del non politicamente corretto, mentre "black"
ha acquisito un significato positivo.
Cito il lemma "negro" dal dizionario American Heritage e anche l'usage
note per "black" che racconta la storia dell'uso:
  Ne·gro
NOUN:
Often Offensive pl. Ne·groes
   1. A Black person. See Usage Note at black.
   2. A member of the Negroid race. Not in scientific use.
ETYMOLOGY:
Spanish, and Portuguese negro, black, Black person from Latin niger ,
nigr-, black; see nekw-t- in Indo-European roots
black
...
 Usage Note:
The Oxford English Dictionary contains evidence of the use of black
with reference to African peoples as early as 1400, and certainly the
word has been in wide use in racial and ethnic contexts ever since.
However, it was not until the late 1960s that black (or Black) gained
its present status as a self-chosen ethnonym with strong connotations
of racial pride, replacing the then-current Negro among Blacks and non-
Blacks alike with remarkable speed. Equally significant is the degree
to which Negro became discredited in the process, reflecting the
profound changes taking place in the Black community during the
tumultuous years of the civil rights and Black Power movements. The
recent success of African American offers an interesting contrast in
this regard. Though by no means a modern coinage, African American
achieved sudden prominence at the end of the 1980s when several Black
leaders, including Jesse Jackson, championed it as an alternative
ethnonym for Americans of African descent. The appeal of this term is
obvious, alluding as it does not to skin color but to an ethnicity
constructed of geography, history, and culture, and it won rapid
acceptance in the media alongside similar forms such as Asian
American, Hispanic American, and Italian American. But unlike what
happened a generation earlier, African American has shown little sign
of displacing or discrediting black, which remains both popular and
positive. The difference may well lie in the fact that the campaign
for African American came at a time of relative social and political
stability, when Americans in general and Black Americans in particular
were less caught up in issues involving radical change than they were
in the 1960s.·Black is sometimes capitalized in its racial sense,
especially in the African-American press, though the lowercase form is
still widely used by authors of all races. The capitalization of Black
does raise ancillary problems for the treatment of the term white.
Orthographic evenhandedness would seem to require the use of uppercase
White, but this form might be taken to imply that whites constitute a
single ethnic group, an issue that is certainly debatable. Uppercase
White is also sometimes associated with the writings of white
supremacist groups, a sufficient reason of itself for many to dismiss
it. On the other hand, the use of lowercase white in the same context
as uppercase Black will obviously raise questions as to how and why
the writer has distinguished between the two groups. There is no
entirely happy solution to this problem. In all likelihood,
uncertainty as to the mode of styling of white has dissuaded many
publications from adopting the capitalized form Black.
___

 Bada che "negro" non � "nigger".
Claro! Non si parlava di "nigger" ma proprio di "negro", che negli
anni '50 era il termine pi� formale e rispettoso, tanto che Ricky
Cunningham riprende Fonzie che invece usa "black". Dopo qualche anno,
dagli anni '60, la situazione si � ribaltata e "negro" � caduto in




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Black has been accepted since the late 1960s by most Americans, Black or
White, who need to use a word to describe a person of a particular race,
just as "White" is accepted by most Americans to describe another group.
In the South, "Negro" is used by whites who refuse to address Black people
the way Black people wish to be addressed. It is usually used as a
pejorative in the South.
"Colored" is more amusing than offensive to Black people. It has a strong
historical significance in the Black community, but is no longer colloquial
except among the oldest Blacks.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_199704/ai_n8782631/
There is a special word which is used only in the Old South, which is very
offensive to blacks. It is a cross between "Negro" and the word which is the
most offensive word of all to Blacks, "Ni**er". The word "Nigra" exists only
in the racist vocabulary of white Southerners. It was invented to allow
white Southerners to allude to the inflammatory "N-word" without actually
using the hated word. It was one of Governor George Wallace's favorite
words - until the tragic attempt on his life in the early 1970s and his
subsequent paralysis led him to reevaluate his views on race. White
politicians who wish to subtly announce their racism will use "Nigra" or
"Negro" when speaking to their core supporters rather than use the word
Black.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XJWtbRNdoqgC&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=nigra+George+wallace&source=bl&ots=N-fIjmhioZ&sig=qbpguu9aGwTkVjtOyA4vYCuFyFc&hl=en&ei=FpiYSqKKMZLuMbG88bsF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=nigra%20George%20wallace&f=false
Is Obama Black or White? He's half and half, therefore, couldn't he be
considered White as easily as Black? Unfortunately, he does not have a
choice. The American formula for determining race has always been that if
you are 1/16 Black and 15/16 White , and might be able to "pass" for White,
you are nevertheless considered Black. This is known as the "one-drop" rule,
which states that "one drop of 'black blood' makes you Black". There are
many members of the "Black" community who could probably pass for "White" if
they so chose. Black is not only a racial identifier, it is also a cultural
identifier which unites a large group which contains many members who are
much whiter than they are Black, but their membership in the community is
based on their cultural heritage rather than their racial appearance.
Most Americans born into the Black community remain in that community, but
when they choose to leave that community and enter the "White" community,
their lives become very complicated. The late New York Times writer Anatole
Broyard was born into the Black community, but chose to live in the White
community, which made his life complicated.
�As time passed, the One-Drop Rule almost fell out of use at the public
level-except when it could be trotted out for dramatic exploitation (as in,
for example, films like "Pinky", "Showboat", "Imitation of Life" and most
recently "The Human Stain"), or to pillory people who "passed" for white,
like the late New York Times literary critic Anatole Broyard.
Anyone who ever knew or heard Mr. Broyard can testify to the fact that he
was indeed a "white man", pretty much as "white" as they make 'em. However,
the tiny portion of African ancestry that he possessed was enough to set
black writer Henry Louis Gates Jr's teeth on edge, so Gates made it his
business upon Broyard's death to "out" him as a "negro passing for white".�
http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/161/39/
FYI, Henry Louis Gates is the same Black man who caused a ruckus when he
recently accused police in Cambridge, Massachusetts of racial profiling,
which led to a meeting at the White House between President Obama, Professor
Gates, and the Cambridge police officer who arrested Gates.
Even Broyard's daughter, raised as White in Connecticut, did not know of her
father's "racial heritage" until she was 24 years old.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14765829
We have a long way to go in this department, both in the "White" community
and the "Black" community.
Joe from Massachusetts


In the USA of the1950s, no one of any color used the word "black" to
describe Blacks.
"Happy Days" is historically inaccurate. Before 1967, a real Fonzie would
have used the word "colored".
Joe from Massachusetts

 have used the word "colored".
I agree that the word "colored" would have been the polite word of 
choice in the 1950's, but I'm not sure that "black" would have been 
"unheard of" and it may have been used as a derogatory term. Of course, 
a real-life Fonzie type would probably have used the word "mulignan."

 wrote in message
news:h7grj5$n41$1...@news.eternal-september.org...

The word which you are probably thinking of is "melanzan", and it is highly
offensive.
Joe from Massachusetts

 have used the word "colored".
According to wikipedians "black" was not used frequently in those
days, yet it was used sometimes, and "it carried a certain stigma".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people
''...In 1835 black leaders called upon black Americans to remove the
title of "African" from their institutions and replace it with "Negro"
or "Colored American". A few institutions however elected to keep
their historical names such as African Methodist Episcopal Church.
"Negro" and "colored" remained the popular terms until the late 1960s.
[36]
The term black was used throughout but not frequently as it carried a
certain stigma. In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech,[37] Martin Luther
King, Jr. uses the terms Negro 15 times and black 4 times. Each time
he uses black it is in parallel construction with white (e.g., black
men and white men).[38] With the successes of the civil rights
movement a new term was needed to break from the past and help shed
the reminders of legalized discrimination. In place of Negro, black
was promoted as standing for racial pride, militancy and power. Some
of the turning points included the use of the term "Black Power" by
Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) and the release of James Brown's song
"Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud"...''


I wasn't referring to the word in Italian but rather in the dialect-mix 
spoken by Italo-americani in that period. I can't verify the spelling, 
but I can vouch for the pronunciation.

 wrote in message
news:h7hapd$7fr$1...@news.eternal-september.org...

The town where I lived in New Jersey was 98% Italian, and they said
"melanzan", which is "melanzana" without the vowel. A melanzana is a very
dark-colored aubergine, or "egg plant", as we say in English.
http://mphotos.live.com/15f9ac6f4d333084/d.aspx?rid=15F9AC6F4D333084!8899&mkt=en-US
Joe from Massachusetts

 offensive.
In M.A.S.H. (1970, but supposedly set during the Korean war)
I recall "coon" being used as racial insult during a ball game.
Judson is a black player, #88 is white.
Cpl. Judson: Bastard, 88, called me a coon.
Spearchucker: Called you a what?
Cpl. Judson: Coon.
Spearchucker: OK, that's an old pro trick, to get you thrown out of the ball game.
Cpl. Judson: Well...
Spearchucker: Why don't you do the same thing to him?
Cpl. Judson: What, call him a coon?  

 wrote in message
news:20090831203431...@news.lillathedog.net...

That was and is a very common slur.
Spearchucker is also a slur.
Joe from Massachusetts

 
http://mphotos.live.com/15f9ac6f4d333084/d.aspx?rid=15F9AC6F4D333084!8899&mkt=en-US
Then, it might be interesting for you to hear how Italian-Americans in 
other towns in New Jersey pronounced that racial slur. You might also 
check the lyrics of Pepino the Italian Mouse, as sung by Lou Monte in 
the 1950's, and the dialog spoken by Italian-American characters in the 
HBO's "The Sopranos" and in Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing."
http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/mobspeak/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mulignan
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_Mulignan
http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080604090145AAByXRD
http://www.pisciotta.net/CD/LouMonte/lyrics-translation_of_peppinu.htm
http://www.vocaboly.com/forums/ftopic1313.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=ube8O40i07wC&lpg=PA86&ots=yHypnrf7py&dq=mulignan%20eggplant%20soprano&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q=&f=false
It would be interesting to me to hear from some Italians who are facile 
with the Siciliano, Napolitano, and Calabrese dialects to discover the 
root of this pronunciation.

 wrote in message
news:h7he80$pp4$1...@news.eternal-september.org...

The Italians I know in my old home town in NJ are from different regions of
Italy, so they used words which were common to speakers of all dialects.
Melanzan is understood by all Italians.
Joe from Massachusetts


So let me get these two things straight.
1) You are continuing to hold your position that "no one of any color 
used the word "black" to describe Blacks" even after Enrico's post that 
cited a speech by Martin Luther King where he used the word "black" four 
times?
2) You are continuing to hold your position that in your town in New 
Jersey the popular term for Italian(-American)s to refer to 
African-Americans was the Italian word melanzan instead of the 
Italian-American dialect-mix form mulignan, even after having been given 
examples from mass media of the time period (such as Lou Monte) and of 
today (such as The Sopranos) in which the dialect pronunciaton was used?
Normally I'd just let these things go, but I'm worried about your 
immortal soul. :)
I even put an emoticon smiley, which is something I normally avoid, to 
emphasize that I'm not irritated by this difference in mind and 
perception, I'm only amazed.

 wrote in message
news:h7hj61$ihd$1...@news.eternal-september.org...

My Irish friends in NJ also use the word "melanzan", which they learned from
my Italian friends, but they don't know that it means "egg plant''.
I have only watched one or two episodes of the "Sopranos". It's trash, as
far as I am concerned. But then, John Gotti always drew a cheering crowd
when he appeared in Court.  De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum.
Joe from Massachusetts

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:30:07 -0400, Joseph Curtin wrote
(in article <%xSmm.2340$Ov....@newsfe01.iad>):

Where I came from (Boston area) the local Italians used a word much like Tony 
described. If I had to spell it I'd write "mulagnan' "
