Is Negro an Offensive Word?

[Emperah]

Lawd ooman yuh head tick bad enuh
Since it di deh inna yuh craw suh much mek yuh nuh send ur grievance to de directors of UNCF an seef dem gree wid yuh

ppl from de Niger delta were known as Negroes again dere is nutting wrong wid de word, it isn't offensive in anyway. I fel no way if anyone seh mi a negro is de odda word i object to wid de gger.
CHO. So glad ur not a dentist

[Tropicana]

Lawd ooman yuh head tick bad enuh

CHO. So glad ur not a dentist

[jah_yout]

Lawd ooman yuh head tick bad enuh
Since it di deh inna yuh craw suh much mek yuh nuh send ur grievance to de directors of UNCF an seef dem gree wid yuh

ppl from de Niger delta were known as Negroes again dere is nutting wrong wid de word, it isn't offensive in anyway. I fel no way if anyone seh mi a negro is de odda word i object to wid de gger.
CHO. So glad ur not a dentist

niger also close to nigger eh? nuff man also say "nigger/nigga" not offensive because it meant gods and kings...like naga in the sancsrit? means god and negus in ethiopian means king..

but i say it's all about context...in america negro mostly carries an offensive connotation

[Emperah]

i'm sure yuh neh tink it offensive when mlk an all dem man a chat bout de Negro, same wid Marcus.
Negro only become offensive when de mind only grow as high as de KneeGro

[Gen]

fada geezas yeyewata mi a tell unnu.

Lawd ooman yuh head tick bad enuh
Since it di deh inna yuh craw suh much mek yuh nuh send ur grievance to de directors of UNCF an seef dem gree wid yuh

ppl from de Niger delta were known as Negroes again dere is nutting wrong wid de word, it isn't offensive in anyway. I fel no way if anyone seh mi a negro is de odda word i object to wid de gger.
CHO. So glad ur not a dentist

[j-kid]

Yes, life humors me.

This topic humours you?

[Tropicana]

i'm sure yuh neh tink it offensive when mlk an all dem man a chat bout de Negro, same wid Marcus.
Negro only become offensive when de mind only grow as high as de KneeGro

This was a different era and a different time when people were not as aware of these issues. MLK came to an awareness that it was wrong and I included his quote above. Also Elijah Mohammed and Malcolm X would refer to the "So-called negro".

[Tropicana]

Let's see what Dr. Hagins has to say about this:

[Tropicana]

When Did the Word Negro Become Taboo?

In 1966 or soon thereafter.

Sen. Harry Reid apologized on Saturday for his recently published comment, made before the 2008 election, that Barack Obama could win in part because he was a "light skinned" African-American with "no Negro dialect." Reid, who is resisting calls for his resignation, described the gaffe as a "poor choice of words." When did the word Negro become socially unacceptable?



It started its decline in 1966 and was totally uncouth by the mid-1980s. The turning point came when Stokely Carmichael coined the phrase black power at a 1966 rally in Mississippi. Until then, Negro was how most black Americans described themselves. But in Carmichael's speeches and in his landmark 1967 book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, he persuasively argued that the term implied black inferiority. Among black activists, Negro soon became shorthand for a member of the establishment. Prominent black publications like Ebony switched from Negro to black at the end of the decade, and the masses soon followed. According to a 1968 Newsweek poll, more than two-thirds of black Americans still preferred Negro, but black had become the majority preference by 1974. Both the Associated Press and the New York Times abandoned Negroin the 1970s, and by the mid-1980s, even the most hidebound institutions, like the U.S. Supreme Court, had largely stopped using Negro.

Had Sen. Reid chosen to defend his word choice, he could have cited some formidable authorities. Colored was the preferred term for black Americans until W.E.B. Du Bois, following the lead of Booker T. Washington, advocated for a switch to Negro in the 1920s. (Du Boisalso used blackin his writings, but it wasn't his term of choice.) Despite claims that Negro was a white-coined word intended to marginalize black people, Du Bois argued that the term was "etymologically and phonetically" preferable to colored or "various hyphenated circumlocutions." Most importantly, the new terminology—chosen by black leaders themselves—symbolized a rising tide of black intellectual, artistic, and political assertiveness. (After achieving the shift in vocabulary, Du Bois spearheaded a letter-writing campaign to capitalize his preferred term. In 1930—nine years before Harry Reid was born—the New York Times Style Book made the change.) Black supplanted Negro when the energy of this movement waned.In 1988, after the black power movement had itself faded, many leaders decided another semantic change was required. Jesse Jackson led the push toward African-American. But, so far, the change does not seem to have the same momentum that Negro and black once did. In recent polls, most black interviewees express no preference between black andAfrican-American, and most publications don't recommend the use of one over the other.

It can be challenging for institutions and older people, who have seen racial terms come and go during their lifetimes, to adapt. The NAACP, founded in 1909, declined to change its name during the DuBois revolution but did stop using colored in all other contexts. Negro History Week, begun in 1926, changed to Black History Month in 1976. The United Negro College Fund is now trying to emphasize its initials rather than its full name. The last time the Supreme Court used the word Negro outside quotation marks or citations to other scholarship was in 1985. The writer was Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice, who came of age during the time of DuBois. Despite public outcry, the U.S. Census still includes the word Negro, because many older people still use it.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/01/when_did_the_word_negro_become_taboo.html

[Tropicana]

Malcolm X – Message to the Grassroots

We want to have just an off—the—cuff chat between you and me —— us.We want to talk right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand. We all agree tonight, all of the speakers have agreed, that America has a very serious problem. Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem. America’s problem is us. We’re her problem. The only reason she has a problem is she doesn’t want us here. And every time you look at yourself, be you black, brown, red, or yellow—— a so—called Negro ——you represent a person who poses such a serious problem for America because you’re not wanted.Once you face this as a fact, then you can start plotting a course that will make you appear intelligent, instead of unintelligent.

What you and I need to do is learn to forget our differences. When we come together, we don’t come together as Baptists or Methodists. You don’t catch hell ’cause you’re a Baptist, and you don’t catch hell ’cause you’re a Methodist. You don’t catch hell ’cause you’re a Methodist or Baptist. You don’t catch hell because you’re a Democrat or a Republican. You don’t catch hell because you’re a Mason or an Elk. And you sure don’t catch hell ’cause you’re an American; ’cause if you was an American, you wouldn’t catch no hell.You catch hell ’cause you’re a black man. You catch hell, all of us catch hell, for the same reason.


So we are all black people, so—called Negroes, second—class citizens, ex—slaves. You are nothing but a ex—slave.

Note hw he defines so-called Negroes = second—class citizens, ex—slaves.

You don’t like to be told that. But what else are you? You are ex—slaves. You didn’t come here on the "Mayflower." You came here on a slave ship —— in chains, like a horse, or a cow, or a chicken. And you were brought here by the people who came here on the "Mayflower." You were brought here by the so—called Pilgrims, or Founding Fathers. They were the ones who brought you here.


We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator.

Long Version:

[lonewolf]

Me just loves the rational. Calling white people oyinbo not offensive through the eyes of one disturbed negro woman, but negro which simply means black is offensive?

There is a very good Mexican beer called "Negro Modella". The word negro designates that the beer is dark in color.

So, my point is that addressing and designating people by the color of skin is not proper.
A beer yes, but people? I say no.

Tropicana does not think there is anything wrong with white people being addressed as oyinbo, but objects to black people being addressed as negro. Double standard plain and simple.

[Tropicana]

Interesting Garvey also refers to "So-called Negros" here.

[LinSkinny]

Negro only become offensive when de mind only grow as high as de KneeGro

OMG mi cya stop laugh!

Anyways as I posted in di other thread, the term negro is considered a label, just as the term oyimbo is a label. Any label can be offensive to some people. We never know who is going to be offended in this current Politically Correct world. So while among friends, maybe a label might be used. I said maybe because I've been in some serious domino table discussions about numerous controversial topics. When alcohol involved, the discussion can become heated.

So that person(s) who have me pon ignore might think I'm condemning them for using labels, they still have a lot to learn about respectfully debating a topic and name calling, even if the label is thought not to be offensive to some.

Class-ism is another topic I'm positive will never go away in my lifetime. Why? There will always be people making more money than me, and always people making less money than me.