Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 16:18:39 -0600
From: Ditra Henry D-Henry1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEIU.EDU
Subject: Re: "race" (was PC Dictionaries?the N word? racism? race?)
Maybe you have the origin of the word but how it came to be used in this
country has nothing to do with either of those etymologies. Ask your self
what race really means and try and define it sensibly and out of the way
it is being used in this country and in this century and even for the last
500 plus years. Then look for an article by Lerone Bennett called the
road not taken. Not the poem
itra
On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Emerson, Jessie J wrote:
I believe the word race used in this context derives from Middle French
or Italian and means something like "generation" (please correct me on
this). And if I can remember anything from my anthropology courses, I
think that in the early or mid 19th century (before anthropology became
a science) that this term was used in conjunction with the division of
the world's population into Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Of
course, the Caucasians made up the divisions, so they got to be number
one.
Jessie
From Ditra Henry
The origin of all the derogatories that we all are so familiar with of
course then stems back to the word race itself. Was this word just
a convenient development to set up slavery in this country? or did it
have
other meanings before this? I doubt it. However just the emotions
that
have been aroused from this discussion is proof that racism is not a
thing
fo the past and that it is still thriving as a meaningful and integral
part of this country.