Word: hymietown
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...point towards the end of his 1984 presidential campaign, Jackson sat down with a group of black reporters, told them they could "talk black talk now," and proceeded to speak of New York as "Hymietown," in reference to its large Jewish population...
Jackson first refused to admit he made the hymietown comment, but then, as Jewish groups grew more and more incensed, he admitted to the remark and attributed it to a moment of thoughtlessness. Apologizing to those whom he had offended, Jackson affirmed his human capacity for error...
Stick around politics long enough and odds are you'll let something slip out that offends someone. Jesse Jackson took a lot of heat for calling New York "Hymietown," and former agriculture secretary Earl Butz's notorious remark correlating black people's ambitions with loose shoes, among other things, deservedly cost him his job. But what if the statement in question was offensive only to people who misunderstood its meaning? Just ask David Howard, a former aide to Washington, D.C., mayor Anthony Williams, who had to resign for using a word that was mistakenly considered to be racist...
Flash back to 1984 and Jesse Jackson's first tumultuous presidential campaign. He had come under heavy fire from the press for privately referring to Jews by the insulting nickname "Hymie" and New York City as "Hymietown." And like the President, he had lied about it. The first black leader of any real weight to come to Jackson's defense was Louis Farrakhan, the Black Muslim leader. At a rally in Chicago, addressing the Jews he blamed for Jackson's problems, Farrakhan brayed, "I warn you in the name of Allah to leave this servant of God alone...
Since the Hymietown episode, there has been a huge and heartening psychological shift in black America that is only now becoming evident. Paradoxically, the very belligerence of Farrakhan's defense of Jackson was proof of its futility. Farrakhan did not have a clue about how the power game is really played (and still does not), and so the best he could do was issue empty threats. In contrast, Bernice King's calm, stately defense of Clinton bespoke a newfound political self-confidence among African Americans. At some point during the past 14 years, many black Americans decided to stop acting...