BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!

Subject: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 May 13 - 03:08 PM

Fired teacher says meaning 'lost in translation' after calling student 'Negro'
By JULIA MARSH and YOAV GONEN
Last Updated: 7:44 PM, May 23, 2013
Posted: 7:11 PM, May 23, 2013

A Bronx teacher says her language lesson was lost in translation when she was fired for calling a student "Negro" — though she claims she was simply using the Spanish word for the color "black" at the time, according to a new lawsuit.

The non-tenured junior high instructor, Petrona Smith, 65, was booted from the bilingual PS 211 in March 2012 after a seventh-grader reported the alleged insult.

Smith, who is black and a native of the West Indies, has been unemployed since her ouster.

"They haven't even accounted for how absurd it is for someone who's black to be using a racial slur to a student," said Shaun Reid, Smith's attorney. "Talk about context! There's a lot of things wrong here."

The instructor took a hiatus from teaching special education in 2005 to learn Spanish in South America, because she was passionate about learning the language in a cultural context, Reid said.

Smith was also accused of calling her students "failures."

But in court papers she claims that second insult was also a misinterpretation.

Smith had allegedly asked students who had failed a test to move to the back of the room, but says she never called them failures.

She denied calling the student a "Negro," and explained to investigators that she was teaching a lesson about how to say different colors in Spanish and said the word "negro," which is Spanish for the color black. She told her students that it was not a derogatory term and that the Spanish word for a black person was "moreno."

She added that she'd been verbally abused by her charges, including being called a "f---ing monkey," a "cockroach" and a "n---r," but had never stooped to their level.

A 2011 investigation substantiated the student's undated claims based on accounts from four seventh-grade witnesses, even though the student's own parents said he'd lied about the event.

A spokeswoman for the city Law Department said, "We have received the papers and will review them."

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 May 13 - 03:10 PM

Must be true!



http://now.msn.com/petrona-smith-bronx-teacher-fired-for-saying-negro

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 May 13 - 04:40 PM

"black," in Spanish, is negro.

Moreno is often applied to a dark-skinned person. It can also be applied to a person with black (dark) hair.

There have been a number of cases recently of over-reaction in schools.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 May 13 - 04:42 PM

That's carrying "politically correct" to an asinine extreme.

Some hypersensitive types can get downright ridiculous about matters such as so-called "political correctness," very often displaying their own ignorance when they do so—such as objecting to a word In another language.

I recall some years ago, I learned the song "Black Girl" from a Leadbelly record. It dealt with the fate of a woman whose husband had been killed in a railroad accident, and contained the verse

Black girl, black girl, don't lie to me,
Tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines,
And I shivered the whole night through.

A number of times I was taken to task—by hypercorrect white people for singing what they deemed "a racist song." Mainly because it identified the young woman's race.

Later, I tried the song on two women I knew. One a folk singer herself, and another, a telephone operator I worked with when I once worked for Ma Bell. Both of these young women were black.

Both of them thought it was a good song and very poignant, and were not offended in the least. They both said, "Go ahead and sing it. If anyone takes offense, it's their problem!"

I did. For a while. But there are so many PC police out there that I just got tired of arguing about it and didn't sing it anymore.

A few people, both locally and on recordings, used the expedient of changing it to "Little girl, little girl. . . ." Which, as far as I am concern, was downright wimpy!

Petrona Smith, especially considering her own race and background, should sue the school district's officials until they go hide in a closet with shame. And could this charge possibly have come from a digruntled student who wasn't doing so well in class and wanted to get back at her?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 May 13 - 05:32 PM

If you sing it "little girl' surely that would open you to the accusation of promoting paedohilia...

And I imagine if you protested '"no, she's a grown woman" the objection would be to calling her a "girl. Sometimes you can't win.

My own view would be that objecting to the term "black" is itself racist.

As for negro" that's a perfectly standard Spanish word for black, with no racist implicatins whatsoever. For that matter as an English word it's not one which would be seen as racist in many places. Less offensive in some ways, I'd suggest, than "Caucasian".

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 24 May 13 - 05:45 PM

"My own view would be that objecting to the term "black" is itself racist."

For whatever reason - though I suspect it has something to do with a historical culture of racism and segregation, in the States Black folk are supposed to describe themselves as "African" American. It sounds like "sort of but not fully" American to me I must say. Especially when the African or indeed West Indian ancestry is several generations removed, and probably far from pure anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 May 13 - 06:05 PM

Or the person from Africa is white.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: artbrooks
Date: 24 May 13 - 06:10 PM

"Black" people are no more black than "White" people are white. What - you think you're white? Put your hand up against this screen and see. You answer a question on ethnicity with "Caucasian"? You or your ancestors were from the Caucasus region of southern Russia, eh? No, you're a mix of English, Irish, German, French and who-knows-what like me? Personally, I answer "some other" or "human" on those stupid questionnaires. "Race" has no biological meaning, and I doubt if there is such a thing as a guaranteed pure anything.

I see nothing at all inappropriate with using "African-American" as an expression of ethnicity...in fact, it is probably the only one of the current racial denominators that has any validity at all.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 May 13 - 06:15 PM

It wasn't that long ago that "Negro" was the accepted term and "black" was derogatory.Certainly in my lifetime.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 May 13 - 06:24 PM

But most black Americans, including your President, are as much European in origin as African.

Though of course, if you go back far enough, everyone is entirely of African origin. That even applies is we've a few Neanderthals in there, because they were just descended from an earlier waves of emigrants from the Mother Continent.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Kampervan
Date: 25 May 13 - 01:20 AM

Very few 'white' people are really white; very few 'black' people are actually black. These words are just labels because people like to use easy labels.

Equally few words are actually an insult in themselves, it's the way the word is used.
The word 'sir' can be a term of respect or, given the right tone of voice and inflection, a term of great abuse.

I don't care if someone calls me an old age pensioner, a senior citizen or chronologically challenged. Its how they say it and how they treat me that matters.

The word 'Negro' isn't inherently racist, it's the sentiment behind it that matters. If the people to whom the word was previously applied don't want me to use that word then fine, I won't. For my part it would never have been an abusive term, but what ever word they prefer me to use will, from the mouth of a racist person, become an insult.

It would be much better if we stopped arguing about labels and learned to be more tolerant. As someone said - above, we all came out of Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 May 13 - 01:33 AM

I know a person whose mother is of Irish/London descent (red hair, fair skin, freckles) and whose father is from central Africa. Her English and Irish relatives mostly call her black, her African relatives call her white.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 May 13 - 02:56 AM

"It wasn't that long ago that "Negro" was the accepted term and "black" was derogatory.Certainly in my lifetime."
.,,.
Indeed. And the same applies to 'coloured'. Someone was in trouble this week over the use of 'coloured' in the Tiger Woods row that has been going on; this was taken exception to and he apologised. But I remember, not too long ago, when 'black' was offensive and 'coloured' was the correct term to use; now that is entirely reversed. How, and when, and why, did this happen?

Oh, dear, it is so hard just to keep up. What do we think of "Dame Edna Everage's" facetious and evasive usage, 'tinted folks'? Should we adopt that?

Seriously, though, what do black/coloured/negro/tinted/ethnic/whevs Mudcatters reading this think?

~M~

Are any of these labels useful anyhow, or a mere distraction? Do we need them? I, just as a for-instance, am a London-born atheist, of pure Jewish ancestry SFAIK, but who embraced the Church of England in middle age, but, as my first wife said, that never 'took' and I quite soon returned to my default atheist position. So what am I? If it matters...

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Deckman
Date: 25 May 13 - 05:11 AM

Back in 1955, I headed for Montana, missed, and ended up in Georgia. During that trip, I stopped at a gas station in Kentucky. I asked to use the restroom and was directed to the rear of the building. While searching for the restroom at the rear of the building, I came across the filthiest outdoor drinking fountain I'd ever seen. It was a basin, filled with dirt, leaves, green and growing algea. Above it was a sign that said: "NEGROS ONLY."

It didn't say "blacks", or "African Americans", or "colored" ... it said "NEGROS."

At my age of 176 I now doubt that this country will ever grow up and realize that, under our skin, we are all the same color, our blood is all red, and we're really all the same people. bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Rog Peek
Date: 25 May 13 - 06:06 AM

I know how you feel Don, I was once accused of being racist when I sang The Bricklayer's Song

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 May 13 - 06:28 AM

Well, Rog, the point of the song is that the Irish are stupid, isn't it?   If that isn't racist, what is?

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 25 May 13 - 06:50 AM

I would say my husband is a negro because that is his race. He is also black because that is his colour. He would say I am a British woman who is white. These terms upset neither me nor him. We like to be black and white, we like eachother's appearance and origin. The harm starts when the terms are used perjoratively as an insult. I remember a South African white boy of eight who arrived in my class in Norwich and was placed in a seat next to an Indian lad. He was disgusted and almost shouted at me, "I don't sit next to BLACKS!!" My class gasped in horror. THAT was racism.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 May 13 - 07:34 AM

For fuck's sake - my computer is black, my cassette deck is black, my Sony Pro Walkman is black, my CD Recorder, CD Player, Carvin amp and numerous other objects in the room where I am sitting are all black. What is the problem with calling someone black who has black skin. It's quite simple English really.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 May 13 - 12:49 PM

Probably the worst aspect is that this, by its self-ridicule, by plays into the hands of those who don't believe there is any such thing as denigrating through language.

Having said that, I hope she wins a big settlement--maybe the PC fanatics will back off a bit.

There's got to be a middle ground--but we sure haven't found it yet.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 May 13 - 01:14 PM

This thread was started to show Spanish usage, but turned 'racist' like so many others.

Okay, I will add a story. In Honolulu, I went to a show by the Brothers Cazimero, popular entertainers there. Before the concert began, they heard an Australian say, "Let's go hear the brownies." The entire show was colored by their reaction.

As a further note, Azizi, who contributes to mudcat, is Black, and that is her preference, with the capital B.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 May 13 - 02:28 PM

I used to have a fine young lady working under me, who described herself as "Black British"!

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST
Date: 26 May 13 - 06:22 AM

"It wasn't that long ago that "Negro" was the accepted term and "black" was derogatory.Certainly in my lifetime."
My recollection too.

Looking at the OP I suspect that they wanted to get rid of her and that seemed like an easy way to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 May 13 - 12:48 PM

'Coloured' and 'Negro' were the polite words in my youth (50s and 60s). I never heard anyone refer to dark-skinned people as 'Black', it was regarded as rude and insulting. I still (in my mid-60s) find myself instinctively wanting to use 'Coloured' when describing dark-skinned people.

Which prompts me to ask - why is it OK to describe a person as being 'Of Colour', but not OK to use the term 'Coloured'?

It's a minefield out there to us of the older generation!

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 May 13 - 01:52 PM

It's generally people getting offended on behalf of others!!!

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 27 May 13 - 03:07 AM

Yup, in view of the dearth of answers to my question, I reckon it must be so! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 May 13 - 03:34 AM

Wonderful imagination, Primitive Tribesman. It's because "Of Colour" is the term selected by persons of colour generically to refer to themselves. Obvs, really.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 May 13 - 03:35 AM

Well, actually, BWM, I don't think one hears "Of colour" that often. When I do, I always take it as someone trying to avoid saying 'black', for whatever reason.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 May 13 - 06:02 AM

I admire black Americans who refer to themselves as N******. It rather cocks a snook at the racism from whites which they endured for so long.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: artbrooks
Date: 27 May 13 - 08:56 AM

@Eliza: IMHO, that's shock jock stuff. I rather doubt that any of them says "good morning, you sweet old ni**er lady" to his mother.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 May 13 - 09:01 AM

Well, yes; it is a perversely defiant usage, as with that group who called themselves "Niggaz With Attitude".

Slightly puzzled, Eliza, I hope you won't mind my saying, by your use of asterisks above, which seems to me perhaps to fly in the face of the point you are making.

Regards

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 May 13 - 09:33 AM

I have asked the question before but have still never got to the bottom of it. When I was in Antigua I was called a 'white nigger'. Was it a racial slur and should I have been insulted? I only ask because I have no idea!

I agree with what Q said though - None of this has anything to do with the Spanish word 'negro' does it. I am sure there must be other examples as well. Interesting discussion on poorly thought out car names here. Dunno if it is all true but quite amusing none the less.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 May 13 - 11:22 AM

It wasn't a compliment.....

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 May 13 - 02:52 PM

So I'm sitting in Russ's Restaurant in Seattle's University District drinking coffee and reading when a friend of mine drops in and joins me. He happens to be colored, of color, Negro, African American, take your choice of what you consider the least offensive, because everybody seems to have a different take on the matter.

It's been pretty cold all week, and he's bundled up in a warm looking coat, gloves, and a fur hat. One of these jobbies:   CLICKY.

"Hey!" sez I, "Cool hat! No, let me correct that. Looks like a pretty warm hat, actually."

"Yeah," he sez. Then adds, "You've heard of a Black Russian, haven't you?"

(1¾ oz. vodka, ¾ oz. coffee liqueur. Fill with ice, stir.)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 27 May 13 - 05:43 PM

MtheGM, I used asterisks to avoid offending anyone here with the full word, as not everyone is comfortable with seeing it printed in full.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 May 13 - 06:37 PM

Someone, in casting aspersions at an opinion I'd expressed,
called me a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, for anyone
who doesn't recognize it.)

I replied that, on the contrary, I was an MPGA.

Give up? See below.
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A mottled-pinkish German atheist, of course!

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 May 13 - 06:37 AM

artbrooks, LOL! No, I doubt anyone would. But I've heard young black men on TV music shows (R&B and Rap, which I really like!) and it's obvious they're addressing eachother with the N word as it's bleeped on the song. Good for them, I say!

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Futwick
Date: 28 May 13 - 10:14 AM

"I admire black Americans who refer to themselves as N******. It rather cocks a snook at the racism from whites which they endured for so long."

Stupidest shit I ever read. The way to deal with white racism is to immerse yourself in it? What should they do next, wear KKK and Nazi t-shirts, attack each other on the streets and yell at each other to go back to Africa?

As a member of a minority race in America that isn't black, we don't call each other derogatory terms that whites have used to label us. I've never heard it and I doubt I ever will. Why blacks have chosen this tack especially when they have proven themselves so ill-equipped to deal with ANY variation of this word when used by those who don't get a pass is utterly beyond me. There is nothing productive about using those hateful terms. It only perpetuates them and if we were going to be so goddamn sensitive about others using those terms then we should stop using them ourselves because it doesn't make sense to perpetuate terms we dislike others using to describe us.

That means we don't call each other that and we don't put those terms in songs where every other word is one of these terms and then blast these songs at 120 dB at 3 o'clock in the fucking morning when people who have jobs are trying to sleep.

And the WORST enemy such people have are white liberals cheering them on for using words they would instantly slap anyone else down for using in their presence. THAT is racism! It's racist when you say it, it's racist when I say it, it's racist when they say it.

Racist terms are used by racists. PERIOD!

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 May 13 - 11:49 AM

Completely agree.
If a word or phrase is racist, it's racist no matter who says it. Its like the parent telling his (or her) child, "stop fucking swearing!" - the debate is lost by the user of the word, no matter who it is.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 May 13 - 11:51 AM

Sorry Eliza, I usually agree with your undoubted words of wisdom but, on this occasion, I'm with the other view! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 May 13 - 12:16 PM

Oh, hell, we have had endless threads on when one can write or say "nigger"; or could do in previous periods and contexts, e.g. in great works of literature from previous ages like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn or Pudd'nhead Wilson, say. Have we ever reached any sort of consensus. Are we going to now? In a pig's ear, we are!

~M~

Honest, now ~~ anyone had a really genuine fit of the vapours or the heebiee-jeebies or any such at my having typed out all those six letters above? Have the heavens clouded over with thuderclouds? Will the grass never grow again within 100 yards of my WP? Oh, come on...

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Futwick
Date: 28 May 13 - 12:32 PM

It doesn't make sense for people to want to censor these books but it's ok to play mainstream songs with that use these words in the worst possible way, it does not compute.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 May 13 - 12:58 PM

I don't wish to re-write historical books, Michael, those written at a time when language and mores were different to today's, I'd happily allow those to stand. But contemporary use of terms like 'nigger', 'coon' et al undoubtedly has strong racist connotations and must be deplored, no matter who uses them.

And I'm no liberal limp-wrist, I call a spade a fuckin' spade (pun intended) but, as with the example I used in my earlier post, it makes no sense for the complainant to himself commit the offence about which he is complaining - it's illogical and it destroys his argument at a stroke.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 May 13 - 01:03 PM

I take your point, BWM; but would like to hear a black man who chose to use one of the objectionable words of himself explain his motivations for doing so. To rob them of their power to offend might perhaps be one possible justification?

I am sure Niggaz With Attitude will have had some reason for adopting that name.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Futwick
Date: 28 May 13 - 01:27 PM

The idea that using the word robs it of its power is the biggest load of manure I've ever heard. If that's so then why do so many blacks flip out when a white person says it? Sounds like its power is pretty much intact to me.

Stop using the damned word, THAT robs it of its power.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 May 13 - 01:53 PM

Precisely!

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 28 May 13 - 02:09 PM

Whether or not Black people should be using the word Nigger or not, is a debate for Blacks to have amongst themselves. And of course - pretty unsurprisingly - there *is* an ongoing debate among Blacks about the matter, both among artists who have asserted their right to 'reclaim' the word, and linguists and other academics who have analysed this cultural phenomenon.

Fact is though, Black people don't need White approval for what they choose to do with the words White's have used to abuse them with. As such, I find the indignant tone of this thread somewhat pompous.

Props to MthGM for the N.W.A. reference :D

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 May 13 - 03:08 PM

I'm with CS on this matter.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 May 13 - 03:10 PM

Look, people, this is an open-and-shut case.

If she was in fact fired for saying "negro", and appears this is in fact the main precipitating cause,   this is supremely stupid:   she is herself black.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: GUEST,Futwick
Date: 28 May 13 - 03:13 PM

"Black people don't need White approval for what they choose to do"

This was the argument used when black NFL players on opposing teams were taunting each other by drawing their index fingers over their throats. The NFL told them to cut it out. And we were all treated to more of this "white society trying to control black American cultural expressions of athletic competition" BS. Well, if they can't control it themselves, then I suppose that is how it has to be because such expressions are unacceptable. You don't do it. Luckily the NFL wouldn't budge on it and made it unsportsmanlike to make such gestures because IT IS!

And, ya know, it's that kind of thing that might--JUST MIGHT--contribute to why 46% of all convicted murderers in this country are black (DOJ statistics). Need further proof? Go into a predominantly black club and point at somebody you don't know or just lock eyes with them--go ahead. There is NOT ONE person reading this who would DARE and we all know exactly why.

And since I live in a predominantly black neighborhood, I would like, for once, to drive down the street and not have to slow down because there's 10 black kids walking down the middle of the fucking street. Hey, we have a great new technology called a fucking SIDEWALK. Try using it.

So maybe when white people or any people who aren't black make a suggestion as to how a lot of blacks can live longer without being shot or incarcerated or run over, it might be a good idea to just shut up and listen once to our pompous asses in a while.

Subject: RE: BS: PC Spanish Class- No 'black'!
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 28 May 13 - 07:11 PM

One question I think many posters have missed would be "how did the teacher pronounce the word"? The Spanish word is pronounced "nay-gro" while the English word is pronounced ''nee-gro". If she said "nay-gro", then it's the Spanish word.

For real overreaction, check out this. My political views are very liberal, and I'm very sensitive to racial issues (probably due to a few experiences of anti-Chinese racism, and being aware of the White Australia Policy, which was just an excuse for White Australians to prevent people of my ethnic group from immigrating here)
I'm willing to admit that Tolkien's books have racially problematic connotations and elements, but calling the Professor himself racist is a step too far IMO. A person can have racist thoughts without being racist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/dec/02/jrrtolkien.lordoftherings