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X-Sender: mduggan@newpisgah.keene.edu To: H-NET/OIEAHC Electronic Association in Early American Studies <H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU> Words like "Nigger" were designed to intimidate African Americans and to silence them. In classroom situations where there is a predominantly white audience, when that word comes up, I know (because they tell me) that some African American students today still feel intimidated and silenced. However, I agree that to discuss the past it would certainly be useful to use the terminology of the past. I assign Gunnar Myrdal in a class on the economics of racial discrimination. Although he was the good white guy who wanted to change things, he wrote in 1944, and some of the terminology makes me cringe. So I do wonder how people handle that--using the phrases of the past to represent the ideas of the past, WITHOUT having the unintended consequence of making today's students feel the way that those phrases were designed to make them feel at the time. Sincerely, Marie Duggan
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