Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
That's certainly the way it was used in Britain, at least up to the 1960s. I hope that nobody believes that Agatha Christie was being deliberately racist, for example, in titling a book "Ten Little Niggers" in 1939.
There was a particular shade of brown that was always known as "nigger brown" in my childhood (in the late 1960s) and there was absolutely no derogatory meaning associated with the name.
|
Harry, white folks may not have found the term offensive. Did you know any people of African descent at that time who had no problem with the term? From what I've read about Agatha Christie, I don't think she thought highly of non-Europeans (or lower class Europeans, for that matter). She may not have named her book with the intent of causing offense, but she probably didn't take the feelings of black people into consideration, either. I doubt she even considered them to be part of her audience.