The "negro" question....

Hi. I heard the most interesting thing on the radio today. Apparently, a 17 year Spanish teaching veteran was suspended three years ago while teaching in highschool.....his crime? He was teaching the colors and negro is the word for black in Spanish. He was writing the names of the colors on the board and included this one as well. One of his students complained and he was reprimanded and suspended. It has been 3 years since he has been allowed to teach and now he is having to SUE to get his job back......Does anyone else have a problem with that!!!

Kristen

I think that in the scope of things something was lost. We are so touchy about other people and their feelings. I'm not one to just thrash people in regards to their feelings but my gosh enough is enough. I have to run my door bell is ringing ~ Devera

My husband (part Mexican with over half his family speaking only Spanish) said, "That's silly!" I wonder if that school district had ANY hispanic students! In San Antonio there were stores and restaraunts with the word "negro" in them to mean "black". I think what we have here are two things: the clash of cultures and the hypocrasy of the various "rights" movements in their censoring of others (whatever happened to the first ammendment?)

[Lisa]

I certainly hope that this is just an extreme case and that this would not normally happen in any given school.

I do worry, however, that education is becoming watered down because of societal political correctness (i.e. certain things in history being removed from or added to curriculums because of societal taboos that may not necessarily be historically accurate). Now what do we do, remove the word "black" from the spanish curriculum or change it to another word that is incorrect, because "negro" means something different in our society? I have to admit also, that I don't even know all of the politically correct and incorrect terms myself. I could have very well said "negro" in public being totally unaware that it was offensive to someone. I always thought that a negro was simply an African American person as a caucasian is an Anglo-American (or whatever the correct term is for that. Is "white" still OK to say?)

My husband and I visited his Aunt & Uncle in Santa Fe, NM not long ago and she had to let us know not to call the Mexicans there "Mexican". They were highly offended at being called "Mexican" even though they were, in fact, Mexican. We had to call them something else and I forgot what it was. Anyway, I take this to mean that certain people are really ashamed of their nationality or the country that they came from and they want to be called by a term that does not sound affiliated with their country (in this case, Mexico). Now, I always feel that I have to tiptoe around any person of a different nationality. We have a lot of Indian doctors here, so what do I call them, Indians or Middle Eastern Americans or what? Are they also embarrassed to be called by the country they came from? When are Americans going to start being embarrassed to be called "Americans"? I think it's all ridiculous and I can't keep up with what's OK to say and what's not.

We have to keep in mind that in the next few decades, America is not going to have easily identifiable ethnic groups. My husband is an example. On census and other questionaires that require ethnicity and skin color, he has to check A LOT of boxes. But mostly, to make it easy he checks Hispanic - Mexican American because his mother primarily raised him (his dad died when he was a child) and she is an immigrant. So, he has a fair complexion, green eyes, and is VERY tall for a Mexican (over 6'2" whereas Mexican men tend to be on the short size, say 5'8"). However, his facial features betray his indian (whoops! Native American) heritage.

America is not the only country with these problems, contrary to popular world opinion. In South America there is a noticable division among those of European descent and native descent. Those with the dark native complexion are on the bottom of the totem pole in society. In Germany neo-Natzis have actually burned down apartment buildings with non-white immigrants in them! Japanese still have a superiority complex over all other Asians and Caucasians (you should watch some Japanese programming sometime - and they are SO chauvinist). In Africa certain tribes are slaughtered in "ethnic cleansings". Racism being the ultimate no no is a little simplistic to me. After all, the ethnic cleansings tend to be in places where the perpetrators and the victims have the same skin color and are geneologically close.

I don't know why Americans get so touchy about "race". I know that my mother in law and her family came to America to get away from poverty and corruption. They love it here and have encouraged all of thier children to be American. I think what contributes to the above mentioned violence is that groups voluntarily divide themselves from others. Then you have all of these "groups" suddenly fighting for thier "share". This escalates, and BAM! You have enemies willing to kill.

The fact is people look different. Skin color and eye color are wildly different from individual to individual. To be touchy about it or to be insulting because of it is wrong. But, at some point we do all have to "get over" our differences and see that we are all the same "race". If other ethnic groups in the US would simply refer to themselves as American, if the US census and other forms didn't require us to divide ourselves up (am I now a German-Austrian-English-Scottish-Dutch American?), and if people would just attribute hate to what it is - hate rather than seeing everything written or spoken as a war on a whole group of people THEN perhaps we wouldn't have the problems we have. But, I'm not stupid, there are too many politicians and "leaders" who have thier jobs because they propogate these divisive actions (like the above "negro" controversy).

The latest was when Jesse Jackson went on national tv to call a man who admittedly committed rape, armed robbery, and various other violent crimes like Jesus Christ because he had been executed. This man had killed someone and was sentenced to die before he killed again, yet because he was black he was a "martyr". I think escapades like this fuel hatred and what caused the spanish incident.