"Niggardly" in Dallas

This is a shame not simply because it is ridiculous, but this sort of thing really gets in the way of authentic conversations about race in the United States.

Perhaps Neil Degrasse Tyson could spare a few moments to talk to the commissioner and explain what a black hole is.

What wasn't reported was Mayfield's brilliant retort:

"I use words like 'black hole' only in their generally accepted, non-racial meaning. By way of illustration, Mr. Price, if I were to refer to you as an 'a**hole', I would mean to convey only that term's generally accepted, non-racial meaning."

On the other hand, I feel rather sorry for the black guys who were offended. It must be a rather miserable trait to be so finely attuned to potential insults that any words that might potentially refer to you are a trigger for such reactions.

When I was at Georgetown Law school, there was a flap over someone using the term "Chinese wall". The term refers to the practice of wallling off certain members of a law firm to preclude conflicts of interest -- so no one behind the wall was to give or receive any information about a particular topic. This practice was called building a Chinese wall, in reference to the Great Wall of China. Somehow this was supposed to be offensive to Asians. How, I never understood, but the term has been pretty well erased and there were apologies all around.

How exhausting it must be to maintain this kind of vigilance. It's almost as if some people wish to hear racially derogatory terms for some reason.

the expression "Black hole" comes from the "Black hole of Calcutta" and not the cosmic black holes. The expression was in use long before the cosmic holes where discovered.

Since most people have never heard of this, I suspect that's not what most people mean.

the expression "Black hole" comes from the "Black hole of Calcutta" and not the cosmic black holes. The expression was in use long before the cosmic holes where discovered.

Interesting if true, but since the alleged mistreatment of the Brits also has nothing to do with persons of African descent the point of the post stands.

Speaking of being uber-PC, the Good Ole American "Family" Association has software that turns each and every use of the word "gay" into "homosexual", thus making 100 meter sprinter Tyson Gay into Tyson Homosexual and professional basketbal lplayer Rudy Gay into Rudy Homosexual. (See aitch tea tea pea://boingboing.net/2008/06/30/homophobic-news-site.html for an example of an AP news story turned into the hilarious headline, "Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials")

When contacted by CNN, they said the word "gay" wasn't "negative enough".

Instead of not wishing to offend some, the AFA wants to be offensive. Cute, huh?

Honestly, this is one of the tamer things John Wiley Price has done or said over the years. A white man who acted like him would have been fired and publicly embarrassed years ago. But for enough African-Americans in his district, he is "our man downtown" and can do no wrong. He engages in such name-calling ("Oreo" is one he uses that I particularly remember) that I am sure he believes other people do as well.

This must be black comedy. Then again, it's not so black and white. Maybe these nitwits just have everything ass blackwords.

One of my favorite TV shows, "Babylon 5" is riddled with references to light & dark, and (occasionally) the colors black & white. The PC police can pry those DVDs out of my cold, dead hands....

That's great, Franklin. "A Lone Homosexual Drops Little Boy on Japanese City!"

Not to mention all the light dark imagery in the Bible.

Here's one to be careful of: "a chink in your armor". No doubt one could write a small book of examples about how perfectly good English has become politically incorrect.

Pig-headed?

And what's happening in other languages? Not just European languages either. Does Mandarin have an equivalent in offensiveness to niggardliness?

If I were young and earning degrees my head would be bursting with potential theses subjects, probably not pc., rather pi.

The use of "black hole" in this context is clearly a reference to the cosmic cavity not the Indian city. A black hole swallows everything in its vicinity, matter and energy. The term implies that not even light can escape its gravitational field. That cosmologists may have whimsically played upon the historical term is not to be doubted, however.

This will no doubt lead these relentless racist whiners to demand that colored quarks be restyled "quarks of color."

And I as a veteran prophet of cultural perdition predict that aircraft will no longer carry "black boxes". The "civil rights" lobby will introduce legislation eliminate this hate speech and rename them "orange boxes." The ire of enraged Dutchmen is less to be feared than that of aggrieved Negroes.

Abbott: Would you look at that? There's a chink in my armor!
Costello: Well don't forget to give him the tip!
Abbott: What are you talking about? Of course I tipped him, I'm not niggardly.
Costello: I can SEE THAT!
Abbott: I oughta wop you!
Costello: The truth comes out!

The ire of enraged Dutchmen is less to be feared than that of aggrieved Negroes.

Ahhhmmmm! You said "Negroes"! I'm tellin'

John Wiley Price. A real piece of work. When they announced that Bozo the Clown had died last week, I figured that was the last we'd hear from him. I guess there were 2 Bozos.

Sorry, Harvey. As much as I enjoyed your personal witness of Mr. Price, he was 100% wrong and, should he press the matter further, 100% bully. I can't abide people unable to admit being wrong, but I refuse to tolerate a bully. I don't care about skin color or past history.

Franklin, I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Over the years I've got the impression that you like myself are one of those people who appreciate bullys for target practice more than most.

I will grant you that John Price is a bully. But he is a bully amongst bullys, not unlike us, bullying back. His offense at the term "black hole" has to appreciated for context. He represents a segment of our community that only has to walk to the door and look out to see what bullying about race can bring about. When he jumps up and gets his back up it's about the interests of those he represents. History gives his perspective legitimacy.

Unless you're here it's hard to believe the depth and width of the racism. One of my crosses is I look like the poster boy for a redneck from Hades. I'm sixty, white hair usually too long, white beard usually a little longer, jeans, work boots, red t shirt, with arms tanned beyond brown.

When I call it a cross it's not an understatement. The other day when I had a crew come into finish a concrete pour for me the look on their faces when they unloaded was an open book. They were black and it was obvious that I was their worst nightmare.

On the other hand when I took my truck into the dealer a while back I had an older service guy come up to me and tell me it would be awhile because the badword N word never got to work on time. I went to the general manager of the dealership and explained how I didn't appreciate that language. I also explained that in these days and times companys got in serious trouble with employees being so stupid.

As I was checking out the old service guy walked by. We made eye contact. The smile on his face said that he was in on the joke and I wasn't. That told me he had been told to be more careful and that's all.

So when I see someone like John Wiley stand up and push back I can appreciate the beauty of the move. Besides that, there's a part of me that likes seeing the racist whites get their skirts all in a knot over an uppity negro.

I'm with you on the whole deal, Harvey. Indeed, I trust your judgment.

... but when a man with a law degree takes offense where there is no possibility of one being there, then I am not inclined to slide him a break or give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't really care if there's a history between him and Mayfield.

He was not being uppity. He was being stupid. He does himself and all blacks a disservice when he does that sort of thing.

I'll tell you a quick story from my reckless youth. A couple of white kids (well, adults, but you couldn't see it for their apparent level of maturity) were verbally taunting a black kid (about the same age). There were plenty of witnesses (none of whom were doing a damn thing), so I wasn't risking much when I confronted the white kids and basically threatened them with being humiliated in front of their victim. They departed quickly. I don't mind telling you, the combination of relief and utter shock on that black kid's face, for someone giving him a break and for that someone being white, is a vivid mental image I'll take to my grave.

I'm no crusader, and I certainly don't have the creds for any sort of acceptance -- let alone praise -- from the black community in general, but a man in Price's position might take heed of my example. I'm sick of so-called black leaders fighting the wrong fights at the wrong times with the wrong people. I want to trust the judgment of a Price, but he damn well has to demonstrate that it's worthy of trust and not the opposite.

Actually I love it when these people publicly demonstrate how dumb they are.

My neck dotes are better than anyone else's. Nyah nyah, neener. ;-D

I've witnessed the military symbol display thing a few times, Harvey. I have every sympathy for and agreement with vets.

In the grand scheme of things, I readily agree with you about prompting dialogue. I just wish Price and his ilk would think a bit more before speaking or acting. Minorities, short of violent revolution, simply can't change societal attitudes on their own. They need those of us "born" into the status quo to work with them. The negative balance to Price is the number (unknown) of "insiders" he alienates with his antics, people who might otherwise be working with him without prompting.

Harvey, thanks for the view from a 1968 SDS meeting. I can almost smell the bongwater and patchouli. And I had almost forgotten that there was such a word as "uppity". Nice. It's a shame you boomer radicals can't live forever to keep lecturing us youngsters about what racist cowards we all are even when we don't know it. Hell, I thought "black hole" was a science term or a really bad Disney movie before you made me realize how offensive it could be. Thanks for setting me straight.

If you don't want to engage in public discussion of this topic, tennesseevolfan, then I am puzzled about why you would post to this thread. Your "BTW" looks very much like a chip on your shoulder.

Oops -- I meant to say (John Wiley) Price, instead of "Riley"; I misremembered the man's name.

'Niggardly' is an honest mistake about the original of the word. It's worth noting that there are actual racist-in-origin terms like 'gypped' that people should probably object to first. And the 'Vandal' tribe would have an issue with that word if any of them still existed.

And there's the fact that, for thousands of years, humanity has had darkness as a metaphor for 'unseen' and 'dangerous', and sometimes that arguably is used in a racist sense. But the actual origin of all the metaphors like that is the fact that, for humans, the night and darkness actually is more dangerous than the day, and that doesn't have anything to do with race. It's simply easier for danger to be concealed in darkness.

We don't need to assume all metaphors like 'the dark underbelly of a city' are racist, and people objecting to them are a bit silly. OTOH, perhaps sometime that should be rephrased a little. (1)

But black hole thing is just stupid. Black holes are not bad, and they are not named metaphorically. (Obviously the term was used metaphorically here, but that's not the same thing.)

Black holes are called black holes because light doesn't escape from them, and likewise they are used in metaphors to mean 'places that things don't escape from'. This is obviously bad if you're talking about a place that things should exit, as in the example, but it's good if you're talking about places where things should not leave. (For example, the NSA is a black hole of information.)

It doesn't have anything at all to do with color at all, or even the metaphors humanity has for darkness vs. light. (As has been pointed out, the origin of the name 'black hole' was a prison, and nothing at all to do with race.)

1) Incidentally, dwarfs in Terry Pratchetts' Discworld live underground, and hence think of light and dark in completely opposite terms, because for them it's harder to see in bright light, and have words like 'endarkened' for when they realized something. It makes for some interesting metaphors about good and evil and knowledge.

The trolls, OTOH, have the same weirdness with their metaphors about time. They reason if they can see the past, and can't see the future, clearly they're facing the past. And they base their metaphors off their presumed 'facing direction' of towards the past, instead of the presumed 'movement direction' of towards the future that we use. I.e., they think the past is forward, and they're simply walking backwards into the future. Terry Pratchett has a lot of fun with metaphors and POVs.

Can we still say "A business is in the Black"? Oh, wait....Thats a GOOD thing, right? Never mind!