Word: epithets
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Early this year my wife and I watched Venus Williams, one of the world's finest tennis players, compete in Hong Kong. During the match several young men sitting near us kept referring in Cantonese to Williams as "black demon," as well as another unprintable epithet. They shut up when my wife, an American citizen who is ethnic Chinese, berated them for their racist language. (Williams, by the way, won the tournament.) What, I wonder today, would those men say about Barack Obama, who soon could be the U.S.'s first African-American President...
...January 28, Laboureur, a middle school technology teacher, slapped an 11-year-old who responded with a vulgar epithet to Laboureur's orders to straighten up his desk. Summoned by the headmaster to confront the errant student and his parents, Laboureur acknowledged and apologized for delivering the blow, and received a verbal reprimand. But the father of the swatted child, a member of the local gendarmerie, considered that punishment too light. He filed a citizen's complaint for "violence against a minor," and his law enforcement colleagues brought Laboureur to the station, where he was questioned, fingerprinted, photographed, DNA-tested...
...time to have a serious talk with her about it. On a campaign swing through Oregon, Michelle's chief of staff Melissa Winter grilled her on the particulars of the various versions. Had she ever spoken at Trinity Church? Could she ever recall having uttering that racial epithet? No, no, Michelle answered again and again. Additionally, she said, "whitey" is simply not a word that African Americans of her generation tend to use - or that she herself would ever say. Michelle was shocked and frustrated when her aides approached her the second time about the alleged incident...
...Political Elite Regarding "A Bitter Lesson" [April 28]: The pundits were frustrated when they couldn't label Barack Obama a racist, so they came up with élitist as an otherwise suitable condemnatory epithet. For heaven's sake, the man is running for President of the U.S., not chairmanship of the bowling league. An élitist is surely someone who has an appreciably wider field of taste, interests, education and comprehension than the average person. Like most of our great Presidents. Isn't that what the country desperately needs after eight years of the cowboy populist? John W. Gray, Toronto...
Regarding "A Bitter Lesson" [April 28]: The pundits were frustrated when they couldn't label Barack Obama a racist, so they came up with élitist as an otherwise suitable condemnatory epithet. For heaven's sake, the man is running for President of the U.S., not chairmanship of the bowling league. An élitist is surely someone who has a wider field of taste, interests, education and comprehension than the average person. Isn't that what the country desperately needs after eight years of the cowboy populist? John W. Gray, TORONTO