April 1, 2006
Political Correctness: The Way It Was Posted by Ellen Feldman at 11:20 AM EST In the current discussion here of political correctness, I agree with Joshua Zeitz on two points. The issue in question is often nothing more than simple good manners. And the term has become a cudgel with which to beat soft-hearted liberals who think an inclusive society is preferable to one that brands and jeers at all but certain established and powerful groups. But perhaps another way to look at the matter is to examine what the world and the language were like before the concept of political correctness took root. (And I admit the term is less attractive than the practice.) The Scottsboro case, recently recounted on AmericanHeritage.com, and a subject I am currently researching for a book, provides an excellent example not only of racial injustice and legal chicanery, but of pre-political-correctness loutishness and cruelty. On July 27, 1937, the New York Times ran an article about the arrival in New York of four of the Scottsboro boys who had been freed. According to the paper, when a reporter inquired of Roy Wright what he intended to do in New York, “He drawled, ’Ah haven’t made up mah mind yet.’” Asked if he was afraid when he saw the mob that had gathered to welcome him at the station, he was quoted as saying, “’Ah ain’t nevah been afraid. Ah wasn’ afraid in 1931.’” When the same paper quoted various white Southerners associated with the case, no attempt was made to convey the rich flavor of their accents. The Times was not alone. When Time magazine, given to its own brand of vivid writing, carried an article about foreign demonstrations to protest the railroading of the defendants, it referred to them as “blackamoors.” There were other objects of official scorn. Ruby Bates, one of the white girls involved in the case, made an appearance to help raise money for the defendants. The New York World Telegram ran the headline “Ruby Bates, ‘Poor White Trash,’ to Speak Here in Effort to Help Scottsboro Boys.” Nor were the slurs limited to press coverage. In one of the many trials in the case, the prosecution charged that Ruby Bates “couldn’t tell you all the things that happened in New York because part of it was in the Jew language.” Attempting to discredit another witness for the defense, the prosecuting attorney cautioned the jury to “watch his hands . . . if he had been with Brodsky [one of the lawyers for the defense] another two weeks he would have been down here with a pack on his back trying to sell you goods.” Needless to say, the word “nigger,” appears frequently in the transcripts. The Scottsboro case was a shameful chapter in our recent past. The words used to describe it were not just a reflection of the mindset that permitted it. They were a contributing cause to a terrible miscarriage of justice that dragged on for almost half a century. Neither our society nor our language is less rich for the loss of ugly epithets and facile stereotypes.
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