Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 33 replies, 34 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 5 months ago by
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I believe those with a limited working vocabulary may find ‘denigrate’ difficult in the same way some find the word ‘niggardly’ difficult to accept or use. There are other examples, such as ‘queer’ and ‘gay.’ I suppose these words are emotoionally charged words for some people, that is, they are given mis-meaning, because they have multiple connotations. I say, go ahead and use your vocabulary and let others catch up to you. That said, it is unfortunate that ‘black’ has a connotation of ‘evil’ but our language would be the poorer if we sanitized it of all imagery.
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Name : David Stephen, PhD, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Humanist, Age : 53, City : Broomfield, State : CO, Country : United States, Occupation : professor, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,It’s inherently a word. Denigrate and words like it come from the latin word nigrus which means black. Negro, negra, nigga, and yes nigger are all derived from this. The words are not racist. Words are just a way to describe something. The feelings and context in which certain words are used are what’s racist. But there’s nothing we can do about it. The word black itself is synonymous with evil, according to Webster. But seeing these things can help you understand why you have a lot of black people who either hate white people, or love white people and hate themselves. It’s hard to like yourself when you constantly encounter subliminal indications that you are evil, and you can’t help but wonder if white people feel the opposite since white means pure, according to Webster.
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Name : AO, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : nigerian and black, Age : 18, City : COLUMBUS, State : OH, Country : United States, Occupation : student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Nope. No more than I find the idiom ‘to blackball’ offensive, or ‘to whitewash’. Unfortunately, it is a part of common ideology that dark or blackness is undesirable, not because of Black people but because blackness obscures or obliterates. I don’t think that is going to go away anytime soon. I do think that uncoupling Black (the racial identity) from black (the color and its associations) is occurring, though not as fast as one would hope.
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Name : R30176, City : Boston, State : MA, Country : United States,I’d never thought of that. But I think maybe you’re going a little overboard. Black and white are considered representations of good and evil among all sorts of different people. Although, if we think of color as generally a good thing black (all color) should be better than white (the complete absence of color.) Racially, I don’t think you should identify with this really. I think I’m pretty safe in guessing you are no more truly black in skin tone than I am white. Where it counts, genetically, we are all but indistinguishable.
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Name : Vail, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Mutt, Religion : Atheist, Age : 40, City : Philly, State : PA, Country : United States, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,….reminds me of the teacher who used the word ‘niggardly’ in class…got the black folks all riled up….i think she got suspended and had to apologize…for what?? it’s a word of norwegian descent meaning stingy….quit whining and get a life…
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Name : tom24144, City : oakwood, State : GA, Country : United States,I don’t understand where your definition comes from. The dictionary says it means ‘to defame: slander.’
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Name : Chris32216, City : Metairie, State : LA, Country : United States,I have to admit to the exact opposite reaction to that word. I want to shout ‘good god, get over it. it’s an important word in our current language’. Yes, it comes from ‘to blacken’, but that does not necessarily connote African American – because ‘to blacken’ has been a concept in our Western European culture long before we had slavery. You blacken out words you do not like when you edit. You black ball a person you do not want in your club. You blacken a home with tar in teh 1600’s to signify a witch lives there. The devil has always been portrayed as living in black space. Black is night, it’s dark, and ‘monsters’ live there from the time we are young enough to imagine them. it’s not all about ‘black americans’ – though our ancient views that ‘black’ in general is evil and ‘white’ in general is good, may well be why we found it so easy to enslave the African population as we did.
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Name : Kip26395, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, Age : 30, City : Boulder, State : CO, Country : United States, Occupation : what ever pays the bills, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’ve never experienced anyone being sensitive about it Lynn, and I use the word often. I hope I’m not offending people!
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Name : JC31139, Gender : M, Age : 48, City : Northport, State : NY, Country : United States,English is a language based on many other languages, and one that’s constantly evolving. I can see why you might be offended since you know the origin, but consider that ‘Decimate’ means, literally, to reduce by tenfold, yet that word is used to essentially mean ‘Wipe out’. Also, we still speak of ‘blackening’ a reputation, or ‘dark victories’–it’s a term referring to color, or dark shadows, or whistling in the dark, or a black mark by someone’s name. None of those are intended racially, nor is ‘denigrate’. Darkness as a condition or color is not the equivalent of darkness as a racial description.
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Name : Clare, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : No religion, just beliefs, Age : 55, City : Charlottesville, State : VA, Country : United States, Occupation : writer/editor, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Current contexts of the word often leave out possible historical reasons for the word. There are many words which use ‘black’ as a reference to ‘evilness’ as in ‘dark arts’ in a religious context. ‘To blacken’ wasn’t necessarily relating to ‘black people’ but rather things of ‘dark background.’ (why do ‘bad guys’ in movies wear ‘black’ and ‘good guys’ wear ‘white?’ Those associations have come through literature well before slavery in history so it is clearly not a ‘racist thing’) As another example, the word ‘sinister’ derives back to a meaning of ‘being left-handed.’ Many people today use the word ‘sinister’ without denigrating ‘left-handed’ people if you catch my point. Words meanings change throughout time, but it is people which give the ‘meanings’ value.
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Name : chadd, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 30, City : palatine, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : account representative, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,I agree that racism is built into our language and so discounting eytomology sort of misses the point: why was the latin term to blacken appropriated in a negative light–if not to give legimitacy to institutional racism? But no one knows latin anymore, so the speaker who uses the word denigrate does not intend to invoke any connotations on race. In the past, amongst the educated classes, I doubt this was the case.
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Name : David25861, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 36, City : Philadelphia, State : PA, Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,…that it has to do with black people or in any way relates to black people. For example ‘He denigrated my good name’ is synonymous with ‘He sullied my good name’ which means ‘to dirty’. I think the black just comes from the idea that one is ‘making dirty’ whatever they are talking about and rubbing dirt on something could make it black, or dark.
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Name : Kate, Gender : F, Age : 26, City : Jersey City, State : NJ, Country : United States,My dictionary says ‘denigrate’ means ‘to sneer at’ or ‘defame.’ No racial or ethnic innuendo at all. Just because a word contains the letters ‘nigra’ doesn’t necessarily mean it is discussing race or ethnicity.
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Name : Ron29648, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Lutheran, Age : 56, City : APO, State : NA, Country : Forward Location, Occupation : Pilot Training, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,I’m glad that people are becoming increasingly interested in etymology – the history of words – because words are a reflection of culture. ‘Denigrate’ does, in fact, literally mean ‘to blacken.’ While this word is far too old to represent American racism, it does reflect a Western notion of white as purity and black as impurity or destroyed. This is a very old cultural symbology, but it is not universal. For example, in many Asian societies white is the color of mourning and of funerals. However, the Western notion of white as good and black as bad reinforces and, in pre-modern minds, justifies racism against dark-colored peoples. The word itself is harmless, but awareness of its history can help us understand our Western cultural assumptions and help us understand that racism is backwards and arbeitrary. In other words, the etymology of ‘denigrate’ can help us understand how deeply ingrained cultural precepts are.
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Name : Chris, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Bisexual, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 24, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : student/teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I think it’s vastly over-sensitive to take offense at words that might, somehow, under someone’s stretched interpretation, mean something negative about their race. Our language is filled with words and phrases relating to darkness as something negative or to be fearful of (‘a dark cloud’) but that’s the nature of the world. Night, not day, portends fear or the unknown. A dark shadow hides something or blocks clarity. A dark cloud is seen to spoil a bright day or forbode something sinister or unwanted about to happen, a metaphor for the storm to come. Things don’t grow and flowers don’t bloom in the darkness. Menacing criminals lie in wait under cover of darkness. Hallowe’en goblins and witches aren’t scary in the daylight, and there was never a sunny day in the creepy Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We can’t see in the dark so we don’t know what’s waiting or hiding – man has a natural aversion to darkness, I think. In the bible, in literature, in poetry and even in weather reports, dark is bad, light is good, but I have NEVER seen or heard anyone equate this to skin color until now.
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Name : Cathy-Coyle32438, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 53, City : Sacramento, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : retired, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,
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