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Public Officials Learn to R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Student-made signs were displayed at the East Oakland Youth Development Center, where a rally was held to combat commonly-used derogatory terms. Photo by Joseph Hong.

By Joseph Hong

The East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC) held a public rally last Friday, calling on youth to end racial slurs. The rally was held to combat “the damaging and demoralizing impact negative slurs and stereotypes have on developing young minds.”

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante was on-hand at the event. He spoke of how words could harm and how they could heal, while a poster behind and to the right of him read “Calling me nigger ain’t cool, brother.”

Ironically, a week earlier, Bustamante, while giving a speech to black labor leaders at a Black History Month dinner in Emeryville, Calif., used the term “nigger” instead of “negro”. Afterward, Bustamante, clearly shaken, apologized to those in attendance, saying it was a “slip of the tongue.”

“Bustamante came out to this [EOYDC] event because of human kindness, eating humble pie and accepting total responsibility for his action,” said Regina Jackson Rasheed, executive director of the EOYDC.

“This is a tough thing to do and it’s something I respect,” she added. “We need more of this from our elected officials.”

The casual use of racial slurs, especially when uttered by political representatives or authority figures who in general are not perceived as racist, triggers instant public reaction.

“There is an issue of sensitivity around this,” said U.C. Berkeley professor of linguistics George Lakoff. “Anybody running for office, and especially by the time they get to running for president, even if it’s class president in the fourth grade, knows something about sensitivity.”

Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain seemed to lack that sensitivity, however. During last year’s campaign, he used the term “gook” to describe his North Vietnamese captors during the Vietnam War. At first, McCain said he would continue using the term, but he later apologized, saying he would refrain “out of respect to a great number of people whom I hold in very high regard.”

Like McCain, Patricia Larsen was also sharply criticized for her use of a racial slur. Last month at an opening for a “Day of Remembrance” library exhibit at Cal State University, Sacramento, Larsen, the library’s director, used the term “Jap Town”. Larsen was describing — to a mostly Japanese American audience — her memories of Japanese Americans being removed from their homes at the time of internment. After public outcry, she resigned, though apparently not completely understanding why some took offense to the term.

According to Lackoff, by using a racial slur, one evokes a stereotype with a negative connotation.

“If [McCain] says ‘gook’ you know perfectly well that this is not a term of respect,” Lakoff said. “And if you’re not using a term of respect about your constituents when you’re running for office, there is something wrong with you ... as a decent human being.”

In the case of CSUS librarian Larsen, while many in the Japanese American community are still angered at her use of words, the university’s administration seems to have given pardon. She is now working on special assignment with the provost and will soon be reassigned as a librarian at the university.

Lakoff says the first thing he would do if confronted by a racial slur is figure out the exact context. Sometimes, he believes, there is a misunderstanding—and people do make honest mistakes and gaffes.

“But if the person is just stupid and doesn’t know the history of the word, then you educate them. You just don’t let it go.”

But Lakoff cautions, “censorship is not the answer. It just drives it underground. It doesn’t raise the issue. It doesn’t allow you to address the issue.”

Lakoff believes a person within a given ethnicity often uses a racial slur against their own ethnicity to counter a stereotype and to play against it.

“I know lots of African Americans who use that word in a way as to change its meaning to make it positive,” he said. “It’s generally done in just about every ethnic and racial sub-culture. People in a sub-group use it to empower themselves and disempower the word.”

But said Lackoff: “It is extremely important for a person not in that sub-culture not do the same.”