One of my favorite columnists, Leornard Pitts, wrote an excellent article today that made me wonder...is there a word for racism against your own race? I vaguely remember that someone may have asked this before.

In Pitt's column he mentioned that he had used the word "brobdingnagian" (I must use it!), which is a toponym from "Gulliver's Travels," meaning big. He loves the word, probably in the same way we have our favorite words.

However, he got this e-mail from an African-American reader (Pitts too is African-American):

"Uncle Tom:
Stop trying to act like the white man and mastering his culture...I mean, bro, your [sic] using white men words like Brobdingnabian [sic] or whatever. I never hear talk like that on BET. For us homeys, keep it real. If you want to describe something as big, say 'Shaq-size.'"

Whew! Leonard wrote, as usual, a marvelous response. In the end he begged people to please have the guts to be who they are, and to dream brobdingnagian dreams.

Anyway, what is that word that means prejudice against your own race? After all, this is prejudice when you think about it because it assumes that African Americans should repeat the centuries of lies that have dated back to slavery. As Pitts said, black kids are supposed to dream about being a rap star, basketball player, or pimp. Balderdash!

Quote "...If you want to describe something as big, say 'Shaq-size.'"..."

Frankly I'd sooner see it described as brobdingnagian since that word does have a few hundred years of pedigree. I, for one, have never hears of "Shaq-size".

It's such a shame that there are some many people around who lack the brains to realise that a fault in understand might be their own.

I imagine another variation of "Shaq-size" (for the non-atheletes) would be "super-size," of course referring to McDonald's.

Leonard Pitts is such a wonderful role model; it's too bad the reader can't see that.

Well! Here is something else I deal with every day. If the kids in my neighborhood want to put a person down, they will often call them "sell-out" or "whitey" or "uncle tom". This terminology often gets applied to the kids who are working on homework . . . as if an education is somehow not something an African-American kid should want? Yikes! It's sad, but true.

Interesting that the term of opprobrium "uncle tom" comes from the "white men words" -- or perhaps "white women words" -- written by the well-known author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe.

quote:

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Originally posted by arnie: Interesting that the term of opprobrium "uncle tom" comes from the "white men words" -- or perhaps "white women words" -- written by the well-known author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe [in her book Uncle Tom's Cabin].

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And how ironic that the term should have become oppprobrious. In Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom was an extremely admirable character, indeed a thinly-disguised Christ figure.

I like the word "opprobrium" and hadn't seen it before. Thanks!

I hadn't either, CW. I love to read the dictionary.com words of the day when they have them, and here is one on "opprobrium." I was surprised to see "opprobrium" used to describe the word "academic!"