the N word


Tillie (Isabel Sanford) used the N word, calling Dr. John Wayde Prentice Jr (Sidney Poitier) that name in the film. Should I be shocked or was this the norm in 1967?

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Come on ! Can't you spell "negro" ? That alone shocks me !

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I'm pretty sure Tillie was aware that Dr. John Prentice is a negro.

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Use of the word back then was character revealing, and reserved for dramatic, controversial, and adult material. Every nationality had an equivalent word. Harsh, yes. Vulgar, yes. But not, let's call the cops and alert the media, like it is today. We Americans used to be known and envied for our tough skin and our sense of humor.

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The negro word was common on TV and film at the time period.

Its that man again!!

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Watch the clip. Tillie was the only person in the film who could say it and no one was/is offended. More than appropriate for the script. It's the last line in the clip that is really hilarious ("you ain't even all that good lookin"). Lol. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC88Tc43r6A


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It IS kind of odd. I was a child in the 60's and remember when Negro was a respectful term. My mother was born in 1922 and she remembers when "colored" was the respectful term, because it wasn't the Mark Twain N-word. The African-Americans of today are still championed by the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As far as I know, African-descended dark-skinned people have no problem with being called "black". I know some fellow Canadians who are black; they prefer "black" and wince at being called "African-Canadian".

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Lava-Rocks, I guess since you see nothing wrong with deciding for others what they should be called, you won't mind if I call you a turd.

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Yes because YOU get to decide what a group of people want to be called, not the people themselves. And you do that because you are so much better and smarter than they are. God bless you for your "gift" to these lowly people. And you can't blame PC to cover and hide your own prejudice.

MaywoodRotaryKenyaProject.org

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Society is what decided the term for black people not him and blacks accepted it. There is noting wrong with the term Negro, it literally means black. In fact some old generation blacks still identify with it, even the last census bureau still had it.

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Society? Surely you mean white society. And blacks NEVER accepted it anymore than they accepted N igg er, colored or slave, all white inventions. The people who were "forced" to use "African American" are still pissed that blacks will not let white people name them.

MaywoodRotaryKenyaProject.org

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Really--it was never accepted in the African-American community?

I take it you've never heard of Frederick D. Patterson and Mary McLeod Bethune's United Negro College Fund.

Or J. Hillary Taylor, who published the Negro Music Journal.

There are other examples, as well.

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What a load of horsesh!t. Negro is no more offensive than calling a white man a Caucasian. It is a scientifically accurate term. Negro is HISTORICALLY accepted by black society. Black people identified as negro first without even using the terms African American or black. For God's sake do you know the first thing about history? You speak like you know the first thing about black people when clearly you're a deluded fool.

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Of course they accepted "Negro" , it was the only word besides "slave" that white people would use. Doesn't change the fact that it was made up by white people, not African Americans. And again, there still are so man y white ppeople who are still pissed that THEY can't decide what black people should be called. It's their choice not black people's choice. And they always bring up the NAACP as a justification for their bigotry. It's the same bigotry that happens when a white cop shoots an unarmed black person, it's always the black person's fault, even when there is video proving otherwise.

MaywoodRotaryKenyaProject.org

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"Of course they accepted "Negro" , it was the only word besides "slave" that white people would use"

Good Lord, where did you learn history?

Just in my lifetime, I've seen it go from "colored" to "Negro" to "Afro-American" to "black" to "people of color" to "African American".

I hate to break it to you, but in 2015, most whites really don't GAS how another group wishes to self-identify. We've got our own crap to worry about.

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People of all skin colors have enslaved people over history and time. Believe it or not, there were African slaves without the benefit of a white master.

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"N igg er"

It's funny, how you think writing the word will result in going directly to Hell, but if you leave a couple of spaces you'll get away with it. Sorry, but God sees your silly tricks.

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I have been alive for sixty years and watching culture for about fifty-five of those years. Black Americans (or whatever term each of them wishes to use) did not choose the term "African-American," the American media did that.

Every few years from approximately 1980 when the term African-American was introduced by the media to 2000 a poll would be taken. Many of these polls were taken of Blacks over those years and every one of them showed that the large majority of Black Americans preferred Black to African-American. But the media never let up. They pushed and pushed and pushed until African-American became the standard regardless of how most of the people most affected felt about.

I'm white. Not really, not any more so than most "Black" people are actually black, but I group up in middle-class, predominately white (or Caucasian) culture. So, that term is close enough to suit me. I try to get to know people I work with well enough to refer to them by name, as an individual.

Anthropologists have not used race as a term for differentiating groups of people since at least as far back as 1980. Physical anthropology lost out to cultural anthropology in the 1970's. It matters where you were and who you grew up with much more than your physical characteristics. "Race" is primarily a political term.

The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

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I remember some reporter describing Nelson.Mandela as "Afro-American"!

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The reason the word is still alive is because black people keep using it. Every other 'equivalent' word has long left the English vocabulary.

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Oh yes, it's all black people's fault, white people are innocent, AGAIN.

MaywoodRotaryKenyaProject.org

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soooooooooooooo. . .. .what is the preferred term today.

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Night-camouflaged

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