In 1998, white New York City schoolteacher Ruth Sherman received tremendous backlash after assigning Nappy Hair, a book by Carolivia Herron focused on cultivating positive feelings about nappy hair in young children. One of the parents was not pleased, according to an investigation launched by New York City's Department of Education, because of the belief that the phrase "nappy hair" was a racial slur. The debate resulted in a firestorm of calls to have Sherman fired.
"[Sherman] had what she considered to be viable death threats against her," says Noliwe Rooks, author of Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture and the African American Woman. "All because she was trying to teach little kids, many of which were of African descent, that 'nappy' could be seen as positive."
Rooks said that when she first heard about the controversy, she was sure that it was centered on the misconception that Sherman, a white woman, was being racially insensitive. But Rooks says the parents weren't accusing Sherman of discrimination. Rather, they confronted her for framing nappy hair as a positive.
"You start to hear that [the parents] were like, 'Why would you be trying to tell my child that her nappy hair is a good thing?' " Rooks said. "I found that fascinating."
Nearly a decade later, in 2007, nappy was once again thrown into the national spotlight after radio host Don Imus used the term "nappy-headed hos" in reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team. The backlash was immediate....
I asked [Zine Magubane, associate sociology professor at Boston College] whether there was a context where the term nappy could be used in a nonoffensive manner. Her response was blunt: "No."
"Certain social movements have changed the meaning of what any word is supposed to describe," Magubane said. "So 'slut,' [for example] — we have had enough of a female revolution so that the idea that a woman must be chaste is mostly gone."
But she says neither the culture nor the context has undergone a change significant enough for nappy to get the same treatment.
What would it take? Magubane seems to say that racism must end before the word can be reclaimed as positive.
I called up Trisha R. Thomas, author of the book Nappily Ever After, which inspired the Netflix hit of the same name. "I wrote Nappily with the goal of putting the term in a new light," Thomas explained... "I knew it may be causing a little stir, but I knew I had to resist the fear and do what I thought was right.
Thomas is asked whether there's hope that the word can become positive:
"If you would have asked me this when I wrote the book in 2000, I would have told you, 'Yes, there is hope,' " Thomas said. "But I just don't think so anymore. There's a group damaged by the word's hurtful connotation whose pain will never go away. I saw the depths of their hurt, and it was painful to even witness. At this point, I've accepted that it's always going to be a triggering word... Always."
Well, that's sad, and it explains the simple censorship today at the NYT Spelling Bee.
You can stop now, but keep going for some musical digression and an investigation of the obscure slang word "mamlish."
I looked up "nappy" in the OED and the second definition was "U.S. slang (frequently derogatory.). Of hair, esp. that of a black person: frizzy."
One of the quotes there was from a 1927 song by Bobby Grant called "Nappy Head Blues." Listen:
Lyrics: "Your head is nappy, feet so mamlish, feet so mamlish, mamlish long... You look like a turkey, comin' through the mamlish corn."
Now, you have to be wondering, what is "mamlish"?!
Listen to "Mamlish Blues" and see if you can tell:
Lyrics here. Excerpting the use of "mamlish": "You used to be my sugar but you ain't sweet no mamlish more... Mama, must I sell it or keep it for my mamlish self... Well, my mama, she didn't like me, my papa, he give me mamlish 'way... Talkin' 'bout your stroller but you just ought to see mamlish mine... She was standin' on a corner, between Twenty-fifth and, mamlish Main..."
It seems to work like "damned" or "fucking" as those words are used by people who say them as often as possible.
There's also "Bullfrog Blues" by William Harris. Audio here. Lyrics here.
I'm gonna tell you, buddy, what a Chinaman told a, a Chinaman told a, I mean, a JewI'm gonna tell you what a Chinaman told a Jew"You don't like-ee me, well I, sure God, don't like you."
८९ टिप्पण्या:
Take your beating and like it Ann.
Submit.
Ask for another.
"Nappy koochie"
lol - brings me back.
nappy (adj.)
"downy, having an abundance of nap on the surface," c. 1500, noppi, from nap (n.1) + -y (2). Earlier, of ale, "having a head, foamy" (mid-15c.), hence, in slang, "slightly intoxicated" (1721). Meaning "fuzzy, kinky," especially used in colloquial or derogatory reference to the hair of black people, is by 1840. It also was used of sheep. Related: Nappiness.
- etymonline.com
It seems to have been appropriated some time in the early to mid-19th century. Perhaps an urban semantic conception. Diversitist with progress, but not in common use.
Cancel Culture™... is there anything it can't do?
I'm too sleepy to care.
Don't forget Imus.
Althouse, hmmm...is that like alt-right?
"Don't forget Imus."
Don't forget to read the whole post before comment on what you think is missing.
My English MIL and Brit friends would get a kick out of this - Nappies are the Brit term for diapers and is short for napkin, which is what the more correct term would be in the portion of the English speaking world that is not fixated on race. In fact, this politically correct but intellectually insane fixation the American left has on assigning racial aspects to long accepted definitions and verbiage would be cute if it weren't so nefarious.
I don't even see "nappy headed ho'" as a racial slur. It's just descriptive of the playing ambience of the Rutgers women's basketball team, following a news report of their gangsta-trash-talking style against opponents.
Describes a technique. Black and threatening.
The NYT is a shitty newspaper...not sure why you haven't figured that out yet.
I have a friend whose last name is Coon...he's one of the whitest people you'd ever meet (one of the nicest too).
The NYT has always been rather niggardly in giving subscription discounts.
I almost never hear racial slurs. I did hear one a couple of years ago as I sitting in a hospital waiting room while my daughter was in surgery after a motorcycle accident.
There was a young Hispanic-looking woman sitting across the room. A security officer walked in and told her, "children under the age of 13 were not allowed unaccompanied by an adult." She was asked to get her son at the hospital security office. The woman replied, "My mother is sick, you fucking Jap!" The officer (he looked Samoan to me) replied, "I'm not Japanese and can you please pick up your son at the the office on the first floor, room..."
The Cheka Never Rests. No cruel neutrality there.
Life in Bidenstan. Get used to it.
"woke" is all about eliminating words with any connection, no matter how attenuated, to an insult. One use of nappy--nappy headed--is a mild insult.
One of my younger history grad-school friends in the '90s was an African-American woman.
Her cyber ID was "nappy roots" or the like.
Narr
And why not?
What about 'linthead'? Is that still cool?
Narr
Asking for a friend
The secret is to get paid for railing about this shit on a daily basis.
Using the word "nappy" is definitely double plus ungood.
Stevie Wonder also had a song back in the 70s, “I Wish”. First line is: “Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy ”
Where have you been?? Words, books and people are being censored all the time. The dictionary now changes meanings of words depending on which left wing politician tells them the new meaning....Just start grunting....otherwise you offend the left.
You can only use the term 'nappy' if you're black. Even the n-word is acceptable if you carry the right color credentials.
If an officially recognized Movement of Oppressed People decides that a word now offends them, it is forbidden, like nappy. If an officially recognize Movement of Oppressed People instead decides that a formerly offensive term is now positive, it is encouraged and made a recognized part of academia, like Queer Studies.
"'The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.'”
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Stevie Wonder song I Wish makes nostalgic reference to singer as nappy headed boy.
Perhaps an instance of the oppressed group's freedom to use terminology forbidden to others.
I am an "official" white person and I think I actually have nappy hair although it is thinning. I am 59 years old and my hair is pretty kinky, and I can barely get a comb through it unless I have just gotten out of the shower and added a bunch of conditioner. I am not insulted by people characterizing my hair in any way.
Growing up in England, I was very late to this issue.
Sailer has many posts on "World War Hair", which is generally black women vs the world, e.g.
The secret is to get paid for railing about this shit on a daily basis.
"Follow the Money in World War Hair"
Now they canceling comedian Nappy Russell. They. Have. Gone. Too. Far.
It seems to work like "damned" or "fucking" as those words are used by people who say them as often as possible.
Mamlish could be an imperfectly cromulent word.
"Nappy" is a sewing word used to describe fabric. Please don't give the SJWs another reason to clog the sewing blogs with racist accusations at people just describing velvet. They've already decided knitting is racist because people who live in colder climates are more likely to knit and also tend to more likely be white. For every Nordic knitting pattern we now have to find one from Sub-Saharan Africa.
I highly recommend bell hooks' book "Happy to Be Nappy." A friend of ours who is an African studies professor gave it to us (she is black, we are white, our daughter is black).
"Don't forget to read the whole post before comment on what you think is missing."
I did. But apparently not very well.
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man;
An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air --
You big black boundin' beggar -- for you broke a British square!
Nappy could come into common use describing our next president's typical workday.
"Nappy" can also mean "diaper."
Calling people "diaper-headed" or just "diaper-head" has always been pretty cool.
Doesn't anyone remember Napster? Founded by a white kid with a "nappy" hairstyle, IIRC.
"Penelope (Nappy) Russell (born Ramsey), 1868 - 1899
...
Penelope married Ben Russell on month day 1884, at age 15.
...
Penelope passed away on month day 1899, at age 30 at death place, Illinois.
She was buried at burial place."
The End.
I would hate to lose "Maine Coon Cat." What's the new woke version?
Stevie Wonder was color blind. Sorry.
I've known several people in my life who were named Coon. Guess it was more common where I grew up.
Cooney.
Great musical stroll through "nappy" and "mamlish." Thanks!
A nappy is a diaper. I legitimately did not know it had any other meaning until the whole Don Imus issue happened. Even then, I was confused for some time by the concept of someone's head looking like a diaper. I still double take whenever I see it used in a "racial" context, as my brain can't naturally comprehend it.
"Someday, the world will stop being surprised when people hired as anti-racism police keep finding sinister racism to justify their existence. But that day is not today."
--Cockburn, Spectator USA, November 16, 2020, "Is your birdwatching society racist?"
Amusingly, Google didn't come up with the Cockburn quote, which I entered word for word.
Duck Duck Go came up with it first. So did Bing. Google is censoring everything they don't like.
Stevie Wonder also had a song back in the 70s, “I Wish”.
First line is: “Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy”
And more than just a song: A ubiquitous #1 Billboard hit in 1976. Every person in America heard those words.
Who is always poo-pooing warnings of “slippery slopes?
Thought police are hiding behind the skirts of the word police (a more genteel version of the grammar police).
"Nappy" described a certain texture, a fabric or surface with noticeable "nap."
From Wikipedia at this time (could change any minute):
****************
Nap (fabric)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Nap (textile))
Jump to navigationJump to search
A cloth with a nap
Primarily, nap is the raised (fuzzy) surface on certain kinds of cloth, such as velvet or moleskin. Nap can refer additionally to other surfaces that look like the surface of a napped cloth, such as the surface of a felt or beaver hat.
Starting around the 14th century, the word referred originally to the roughness of woven cloth before it was sheared.[1][2] When cloth, especially woollen cloth, is woven, the surface of the cloth is not smooth, and this roughness is the nap. Generally the cloth is then "sheared" to create an even surface, and the nap is thus removed. A person who trimmed the surface of cloth with shears to remove any excess nap was known as a shearman.[3]
************************
So next the word "black" will be banned because it has been used to describe a skin color? "Ebony"? And where does it go from there?
The market for racism (and fascism) far exceeds the supply, so the customers have to make do with bad substitutes.
"So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy...
Kipling has all but been erased.
Colonialism and all that rot, what?
In Syracuse, NY, a Cooney is a delicious white hotdog.
I have some in my freezer...
Of course ti is - everything is racist, except words used to denigrate white people and whiteness. Those words are accepted and encouraged.
So nappy, nap and dereivatives are plain just out. So are any words that can be missused to be banned because soemone might be offended? If I am offended by your censorship and rush to ban all speech you disagree with, does that mean you get banned?
This is all getting just too much to follow. It seems if a single person in one of the protected classes finds offense at some word or object or differing viewpoint, then the narrative must shift to destroy that whihc has caused the offense. Never mind that you actually do not have any guarantee of getting through life un-offended.
Who has taught all of these people that life is supposed to be 'fair' and that it is all about 'likes'? None of this will end well for anyone - least of all the purpetually offended and their enablers.
Only time I ever heard that word was in use by blacks. That was over 40 years ago.
I'm pretty sure we have already disallowed "niggardly" in polite conversation (and presumably NYT word games). I am also offended by "negligible" and "negotiated".
Blacks seemed to accept their hair in the 70s and a ton of whites got repeated perms to imitate those awesome afros. Wrecked their hair, too.
Now, black women are sooo anxious about their hair, and spend big bucks on processes, extensions, and weird colors. I've never seen such goofy hair-do's as I've seen on black talking heads on PBS etc. The thing seems to be to poof the hair out sideways to show up on camera. I LOL.
And the guys with their Buckwheat curls...they've completely regressed.
And it's all our fault somehow.
I blame Beyonce.
Steve Sailer, as usual ahead of the curve due to his uncanny ability to suss out the logic of the 21st century, has been documenting "world war hair" for several years now on his blog.
When they come for "Jewfro," they'll have to take my brother.
Everything is a racial slur. (And don't you forget it.)
My recollection of the first time of hearing the term ‘nappy’ as applied to hair texture was from Cheech & Chong:
He is the man with the hits out. Happy, happy, black and nappy.
Ain't too proud to bitch. And only my mama loves me, but she could be jiving too.
Would you please welcome the most out of sight man in show business,
Blind Melon Chitlin!!!
Some weeks ago they were missing gypped. That one is more clearly racial though.
I think if the girls had called Imus a "nappy-headed host" while the iron was still hot, he'd have never returned to broadcasting. Every guest and their dog could have used that clapback until the end of time.
"Fat and Nappy" was how the black guys described their hair after extensive grooming. It was a sign of vitality.
Yesterday the missed Jabba, Jawa and Naboo. Now I know what you're thinking - proper names. But then they had Boba. So...
The term seems descriptive, not pejorative. But what would I (whose hair is not nappy) know? Presumably one is permitted to say "nappy" if one's hair is, in fact, nappy.
Nonetheless, the "everything is racist" meme has become old. As is the growing list of "you can't say that" prohibitions.
It is about making certain words not just taboo but subject to "hate speech" laws.
It works on today's college grads because they are told that speech (and ideas) you deem offensive are violence and should be punished.
It is a Brave New World we are entering.
I had heard the word but never used it. Before Imus, I always thought it was how Black people described nap hair, i.e. what white people call bed hair or hat hair. I thought it was a put down but not a gross, inflammatory insult. ...Here are some overtly racist remarks. I would guess that so far as thickness and luxuriance goes, Asian people have it all over whites. Wig makers prefer to use their hair. The downside is that it only comes in one color. White people, while they have a smattering of faults, really know how to grow hair with different shades and textures. Some are even blessed with the highly coveted red shade which psychologists claim is a clear marker of superior intelligence and character....Black people didn't luck out in the hair department. They can take some comfort in superior hamstring muscles, but their hair is not great. Balding black men with bowling ball skulls can find refuge by just shaving their heads. It looks cool, and you don't even have to be bald to do it. I suppose black women could just shave their heads, too, and wear wigs. I suppose a lot of them do. It's not organic but neither is lip gloss or eye make up.....I predict that this problem will not be solved in my lifetime nor in the lifetime of anyone's youngest grandchild.
I liked how Redd Foxx described his hair in his younger days: Dyed, fried and laid to the side. I miss Redd Foxx.
"When they come for "Jewfro," they'll have to take my brother."
Back in the day, everyone called them "Isros".
Slightly off topic: I'm attracted to Lily Collins. I like her eyebrows. They are thick and dark. I think they're called "caterpillar eyebrows". I can't understand why thick eyebrows are so attractive. If I ever shared an intimate moment with Lily Collins, I would not perform unspeakable acts on her eyebrows or, for that matter, even caress them in a gentle, courtly manner. I just think they're attractive to look at. So far as I know there are no such things as eyebrow wigs. I think women even pluck their eyebrows.....I wonder if I've developed some fresh new fetish or if other men are attracted to thick, dark eyebrows.....But please don't misunderstand me. I would never judge a woman's character based on her eyebrows. It's just one small, but not insignificant factor in a woman's overall attractiveness. I think Blacks, Asians, and whites are all about equal in the eyebrow department. Maybe we should all start paying more attention to eyebrows. That would be the way forward.
"Slightly off topic: I'm attracted to Lily Collins. I like her eyebrows. They are thick and dark."
Slightly?
Collins is in need of a weed whacker, but to each his/her own.
Thick and dark as opposed to Phyliss Diller's Crayola 'forever surprised' eyebrows?
He "welshed" on a bet.
"Hey, Sean, send more Paddy Wagons to that pub at 103rd and Western. The kids are fighting in the street!"
We've taken care of everything
The words you read
The songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes
It's one for all and all for one
We work together, common sons
Never need to wonder how or why
It also won't take "poopy". Though in the past, it has accepted "poop" - much to my kids' delight.
The day Don Imus had to bow down to Sharpton (who refused his apology) was the day you knew they won. Same today. But it's BLM Inc. now.
OK, I had to see what Lily Collins's eyebrows look like. I still don't know who she is, but she's really pretty, even(?) with the furries.
Phil Collins's daughter. Day-um. I am not a fan of his but don't hold that against her.
Narr
She's no Ava Gardner, but very few are.
'So "nappy" must be a "cuss."'
No. "Nappy" is an "unmentionable". Like "niggardly".
next thing you know; they'll get using N*ggerhead as a spelling bee word
and Soon, people won't know what all the fuss was about
Isn't "nappy" just like the word "black" in this way? It's simply a word describing a natural physical characteristic.
And why are Blacks supposed to be ashamed and insulted by their general innate characteristics? That seems like a pretty racist position to take.
If rap music and songs called wet ass pussy are mainstream, then I can say any damn thing I want. They can sod off, I am done allowing them to just make crap up.
Ask Don Imus.
It took "wanna" yesterday. Barely literate.
I finally read the NPR piece (CodeSwitch, of course), and, whaddaya know, it also completely ignores the founder of Napster.
Wiktionary:
Named after Napster, a file-sharing system that facilitated the copying of copyrighted MP3 audio files, itself named after a nickname of its creator Shawn Fanning, referring to his nappy-textured hair; hence nap + -ster.
Shawn Fanning, again, is white.
People tell me I have great hair, but I have to wash it every day or it looks terrible, and I have to pay someone who knows what they are doing to have it cut. I would prefer the nappy hair of my melamine enhanced brothers. It seems way easier to maintain. The grass is always greener...
Can we refer to them as pubic headed then, instead of nappy headed?
That shouldn't offend anyone.
Why is "kinky" hair less offensive than "nappy"? Seriously. I mean there are physical differences among races. I don't think those differences are very important, but are we supposed to ignore them?
Of course it is, just like niggardly — ask done governmental tyrant from Maryland
Tell me sister, How do you feel
When that nappy head brother ain't for real
Back when in LA's black neighborhoods, calling someone a nappy-headed whatever was a common shot, not worth a throw-down, just dumb-funny.
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा