OPINION:
Men and women (and mostly men) have always had trouble with what to call each other. Juliet in her frustration at the prospect of separation from Romeo asked the question, what’s in a name? “That which we call a rose,” she observed, “by any other word would smell as sweet.”
Perhaps, but not in America, circa 2016. Mere words can be thorns among the roses.
President Obama has signed legislation removing the words “Negro” (with or without the capital ’N’) and “Oriental” from the U.S. Code of federal laws. Rep. Grace Meng of New York, a Democrat of Chinese descent, introduced the legislation to eliminate the two words and it was adopted unanimously in both the House and Senate.
“The term ’Oriental’ has no place in federal law and at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good,” she says, “and no longer will any law of the United States refer to Asian Americans in such an offensive way.” If the word offends, eliminating it from the law books is all to the good, but it’s a word that millions of Americans have used with no idea that they were offending anyone, or how.
The language has so many thorns and potholes in it now that a kind and considerate person is well advised to keep his mouth shut. The word “Oriental” was used early in the nation’s history to describe the “other,” and “Asian American” or “African American” does that, too. But if eliminating the words “Oriental” and “Negro” from the law spares someone’s feelings, why not? Perhaps one day, the sooner the better, we’ll all be just plain Americans.
The word “negro” was originally only a word for a color, or, to be precise, lack of color. Eventually it was thought to be too close to “the N-word,” even if pronounced as “nigrah” by well-meaning folk speaking with a soft accent, and fell into disfavor in polite society. The search for a suitable substitute continues to this day. Not so long ago “colored people,” as in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was a term that everyone, black and white, used with respect. The term fell out of favor and fashion, but a more poetic version of it, “people of color,” is back. For how long, none can say.
Words take on meanings that the earlier generations which used them would not recognize. The “N-word,” which hardly deserves a capital letter, has become so toxic that even the suggestion of it is enough to invite offense. Several years ago, a bureaucrat of the pale persuasion, thinking he was showing solidarity with the poor and black, decried certain cuts in the District of Columbia budget as “niggardly” and almost lost his job along with his head. “Niggardly,” a word with no association, by root or otherwise, with “Negro” or the N-word, only means “stingy.” But “niggardly” was dispatched to the island of lost words, anyway. Free speech is not always free.
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