Senator Harry Reid apologized for remarks he made in private when President Obama was running for election. Atlantic Wire reported, "...according to a new book, "Game Change," by political reporters Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The authors recount, "He was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' as he said privately."
Being a young hipster, the word 'Negro' isn't part of my vernacular. I had to ask my a friend over 50 and even he was too hip to remember why the word Negro would be used. Google search sent me to a link on Wikipedia describing a Negro, 'The word Negro was used to refer to a person of Black ancestry prior to the shift in the lexicon of American and worldwide classification of race and ethnicity in the late 1960s.' Oh, so in the olden days the word Negro was used to describe a black man. Huh, it sounded racist to me.
According to Senator Harry Reid, not having a 'Negro dialect' is desirable if you are running for President. Check. I'll remember that the next time I run for office.
I wonder what a 'Negro dialect' sounds like.
Bartleby.com is a online bookstore carrying 'Negro dialect' works of literature. The site states that there are four different types of Negro dialects including the 'dialect spoken by the Creole Negroes of Louisiana'. Bartleby states, "Its musical quality and the extent to which elision and contraction have been carried may be seen in the following love song of the Creole negro Bras-Coupé, one of the characters in Cable’s Grandissimes." Maybe, it's best that President Obama didn't break into love songs where elision is messed with.
Go Harry! Good call.
*Photo credit: Senator Harry Reid website
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