What Americans say
Sir: I decided, years ago, that Sir Denis Brogan was beyond moral ,criticism when, as members of the party at the captain's table on the SS France, we were assailed by an inexhaustible coloratura, and Sir Dennis raised his arms and eyes to Heaven and cried: Lightning! Will you never strike?'
And so it is with no desire to carp, but to illuminate, that I hope to correct his impression, as conveyed in your issue of November 25, that in referring to our Blacks' many of Mr Nixon's supporters say 'Niggers.'
The last American who, to my knowledge, either publicly or privately, used the word " Nigger" was the black activist Dick Gregory.. He chose it for the title of his autobiography.
The word is no longer part of the American language. Even the most unswayable racist, in the deepest South, during the most Intimate discourse, does not use that term, has, indeed, abandoned such less offensive, but discriminatory terms as ' negro,' ' nigra ' and 'coloured.' The word we use, Nixon supporters or Nixon • haters, is the word Sir Denis uses — 'the blacks.' We are, in fact startled to hear the word 'co No one will claim that the attitude behind the word has vanished from American life. Yet the word has, and maybe that's a beginning. Such words, however, as ' Honkey," Charley," Whitey ' and 'Pit,' used to describe nonblacks are in common usage, both publicly and privately.
Al Capp
8 Chelsea Embankment, London SW3
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