So I’m suspended after bringing to the attention of A BNR MAGAMOD an “offensive” racial epitaph.
The “offensive” word in question is Negro. The phrase posted by a MAGAT here was “magic negro”.
First off, Negro is certainly considered “offensive” as practically any online dictionary entry will attest to:
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
Ne·gro
/ˈnēɡrō/
<strong>OFFENSIVE</strong>•DATED
noun
noun: Negro; plural noun: Negroes
a Black person.
adjective
adjective: Negro
relating to Black people. <li>
Here is another authoritative citation describing the offensive use of Negro from the document
https://www.archives.gov/research/catalog/lcdrg/appendix/black-person
English speakers adopted <strong>Negro</strong> from Spanish and Portuguese (in which negro is the masculine word for the color black) in the mid-16th century. <strong>White people, especially enslavers and their supporters, used it to refer to Black people through the 19th century;</strong> the term was also used in now-debunked theories of race. During the early to mid-20th century, many Black Americans reclaimed the term as a preferred self-identifier, and many Black-led and Black-focused organizations incorporated it into their formal names. However, after the Black Power movement in the 1960s, <strong>the term fell out of favor and is now considered derogatory and offensive because of its associations with slavery, racism, and oppression against Black people.</strong>
So the use of Negro is clearly “derogatory and offensive” by the rest of world but apparently not at BNR.
Now, one of the arguments by MAGATS here for continued use of the phrase “magic Negro” was ignorantly claimed it was coined by Spike Lee so therefore anyone can use it in any context.
I attempted to prove the idiocy of this specious argument by pointing out Spike Lee in his films and many other black Americans use the “N” word but that doesn’t make the use appropriate here. I didn’t use “N” but rather spelled it out in quotes. I stand by that argument and the example absolutely proves the absurdity of this MAGAT claim.
To further prove the inconsistencies and arbitrary nature of some of these BNR “rulings” I used “House Negro” in describing Clarence Thomas.
This is a description used by much more celebrated Black Americans such as Malcolm X.
So if “Magic Negro” isn’t offensive because it’s been used by Spike Lee, then “house Negro” in describing Brother Clarence certainly must be permitted