Language is a minefield, and language combined with race is doubly loaded. I have written about this for many years (in this essay, for example).
During the 2008 presidential campaign, a Republican congressman from Georgia referred to Barack Obama and his wife as “uppity.” Criticized for it, he said he had no idea that the word had racial connotations.
A lot of people said, “No way.” Others said, “Way.” When I raised the issue in my column, I heard from readers who said, “I don’t regard myself as sheltered, but, like the congressman, I had no idea.”
How can you refute that? Some people are innocent.
In light of Monkeygate, down in Florida, I’ve been thinking of Howard Cosell — who in 1983 was covering a Cowboys–Redskins game. “That little monkey gets loose, doesn’t he?” He was referring to the Redskins’ Alvin Garrett, a pass receiver of diminutive stature, certainly for the NFL (5 foot 7). As Garrett is black, a furor ensued.
Cosell protested his innocence. First, there was his record on civil rights (sterling). But second, he often used “little monkey” to refer to small, fast people. He used the term about his own grandchildren.
In 1972, he said the following about Mike Adamle, a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs (white): “That little monkey — you know, the theory was that he was too small for pro football.” And here he is in 1982, talking about Glenn Hubbard, not the economist but an infielder for the Atlanta Braves (white): “That little monkey can really pick it.”
The 1983 episode, concerning Alvin Garrett, was a blot on Cosell’s record — and wholly undeserved, in my opinion. The athlete himself agreed. When Cosell died, Garrett said, “I liked Howard Cosell. I didn’t feel that it was a demeaning statement.”
And yet and yet. Black people have been referred to, and depicted as, monkeys and apes for years and years, and centuries and centuries. If some people are all too sensitive on this front, that sensitivity is understandable. I have spent a good deal of my life decrying false accusations of racism, and I have inveighed day after day against political correctness, especially in language. But the sting of racism is not to be overlooked or snorted away.
Indeed, one problem with false accusations of racism is that they cast doubt on justified accusations of racism. There’s enough real racism about without having to make an issue of “monkey this up.”
One more word — about one more word, namely the adjective “articulate.” Over the years, that has become a term of condescension used about black people. Are some black people, like some white people, articulate? Of course. Are some people, of all hues, uppity? Damn right. But like it or not, words don’t live in a vacuum, they live in a society.