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Ursprungligen postat av
-Nederbird-
Exakt så. I äldre svensk litteratur förekommer faktiskt båda ord, nigger och neger. Nigger nedsättande och neger den neutrala benämningen på svarta afrikaner i allmänhet och västafrikaner i synnerhet.
Ja, det var högljudd minoritet under Malcolm X som ville kallas "black" istället för "negro". Det var början på slutet för det gamla svenska ordet "neger" som neutral benämning för dem med mörk hudton.
”Fram till och med 11:e upplagan (1986) av Svenska Akademiens ordlista stod ordet helt utan värderingskommentar. I den 12:e upplagan (1998) förekommer noteringen något nedsättande, och i den 13:e upplagan från 2006 står det kan uppfattas som nedsättande. I den 14:e utgåvan från 2015 togs bland annat ”negerboll” bort ur ordlistan och ”neger” belades med varningstext om att det är nedsättande.”
Jag sörjer att det ursprungligen respektfulla, värdeneutrala ordet ”neger” nu förstörts av språkpoliser och getts till rasister så att de nu har två pejorativa ord. Vi har dessvärre inte heller någon bra ersättning. Än värre är att äldre progressiv litteratur som Harriet Beecher Stowes "Onkel Toms Stuga. Skildringar från negerslafvarnes lif i Amerikas Förenta Stater" eller Artur Lundkvists ”Den mörke brodern – en antologi negerlyrik i urval" nu upplevs föråldrad och rasistisk. Det är faktiskt att postumt kränka författarna som skrev dem. Så sent som 2002 kunde Kjell Genberg ge ut äventyrsboken "Negerpojken" utan att det väckte anstöt.
Den snabba förändringen berodde på Malcolm X. Tidigare hade medborgarrättsrörelsen först kämpat för att "Negro" eller "Afro-American" skulle ersätta "coloured".
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In periods of reaction and extreme stress, black people usually tum inward. They begin to redefine themselves and they begin to argue seriously about names.
The post-Reconstrnclion period, one of the whitest times in American history, was an archetypal expression of this process. The word "coloured" still retained a commanding position in this period, but men like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington used the word "Negro" freely. There were also articulate exponents of the Afro-American theme, as evidenced by the founding, in 1899, of the National Afro-American League, and the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, established in 1892. Toward the end of the century, the word "Negro" began to supplant the words "colored" and "Afro. American." It was during this period that the first national Negro organizations (the American Negro Academy in 1897 and the National Negro Business League in 1900) were founded. The founding of the National Association for the Advancement of ColOTed People in 1909 marked, it seems, the disappearing peak of the colored movement.
By 1919, the Negro Year Book could report: "There is an increasing use of the word 'Negro' and a decreasing use of the words 'colored' and 'Afro. American' to designate us as a people. The result is that the word 'Negro' is, more and more, acquiring a dignity that it did not have in the past." During this same period, there was an aggressive campaign for capitalization of the word "Negro." This campaign, which was led by the NAACP, peaked in 1930 when the New York Times announced that it would print the word "Negro" with a capital letter. In an editorial ( March 7, 1930), the newspaper said: "In our 'style book' 'Negro' is now added to the list of words to be capitalized. It is not merely a typographical change; it is an act in recognition of racial seU-respect for those who have been for generations in 'the lower case.'"
Although the word "Negro" became a generally acceptable designation in the 1930s, there was strong opposition from militant radicals like Adam Clayton Powell, who continued to use the word "black," and from militant nationalists like Elijah Muhammad, who continued to speak of "so-called Negroes." This opposition, inchoate and unorganized, was sharpened in the '50s and '60s by the rhetorical artistry of Malcolm X and the emergence of the Black Power movement. But Malcolm X and the Black Power movement were reflections of a general crisis of identity which is similar in tone and urgency to the crises of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th.
Många negrer i USA motsatte sig i slutet av 60-talet att bli kallade Afro-American:
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An equally large, but not so vocal, group says the word ”Negro” is as accurate and as euphonious as the words ”black” and ”Afro-American.” This group is scornful of the premises of the advocates of change. A Negro by any other name, they say, would be as black and as beautiful–and as segregated. The times, they add, are too crucial for Negroes to dissipate their energy in fratricidal strife over names…Negro advocates charged indignantly that ”the whole black issue was raised by a handful of intellectuals, none of whom are black, except for their beards.
Till och med så sent som 2000 var det ett aktivt motstånd bland äldre negrer mot att bli kallad Black eller African American:
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The category “Black, African Am., or Negro” was used in Census 2000, based on research in the late 1990’s that showed there was an older cohort of African-Americans who self-identified as “Negro.” Surprisingly, about 56,000 persons took the time to write in under the “some other race” category the word “Negro.” Above half of them were less than 45 years of age in 2000.
