Brooks Peterson

Monday, Feb. 1, 1999

Washington's object lesson in P.C. power

   There are those who would have us believe "political correctness" is simply a straw man thrown together by right-wingers who cling furiously to old and sometimes hateful attitudes and usages.
   Indeed, the critics go on, there is reason to question not only whether political correctness represents a genuine problem, but whether it exists at all. The initiatives clustered under the P.C. rubric, they say, seek to breach barriers thrown up by ingrained prejudices that for too long have gone unexamined.
   Or something like that.
   Now, I don't propose to set off a full-blown jihad here. There are honorable, if too often overheated, people on either side of this particular divide.
   However, as to whether or not P.C. exists, we must acknowledge that it does. It has forced into disuse (if not complete retirement) any number of crude and even cruel stereotypes which inflicted real pain on their targets: It's tough to see how that's a bad thing.
   But then you run up against something like the case of David Howard.
   Chances are you've never heard of him. Howard, who is white, is - or was - an aide to Washington's new mayor, Anthony Williams, who is black.
   Howard's job was to serve as a conduit for complaints to the mayor from members of the community. It was a sensitive posting, but not one laden with high explosive potential.
   But then Howard tripped over his tongue. In a meeting, he characterized a fund he administered as "niggardly" - that is, stingily financed, short on resources, that sort of thing.
   And the manure hit the fan.
   Some of those in attendance apparently believed the adjective derived from what we call "the N-word" - that still all-too-common racial slur. A furor arose over what appeared to be the gratuitous use of the hated, and hateful, epithet.
   A campaign to oust the hapless Howard would surely have materialized. However, in a pre-emptive strike, he ousted himself. In resigning his post, he expressed regret for his choice of words, adding, "I would hope that this will be a red flag to us, that we need to learn to perceive things from the other person's point of view."
   All of this, however, overlooked one thing: There is no relationship, etymological or otherwise, between "niggardly" and the N-word. "Niggardly" is in fact a word of Scandinavian derivation, tracing back to the Old Norse hnoggr (which should have a diagonal slash through the "o," but my computer doesn't do Old Norse).
   "Niggardly" has a horse-and-buggy feel about it. That, and the profoundly unfortunate resemblance to the aforementioned N-word, have pretty much taken it out of circulation.
   So why did Howard use it? Perhaps his synapses weren't operating on all eight cylinders. Perhaps he has a weakness for archaisms. Whatever.
   The larger question, however, is: Should the mere use of this word, with no offense intended, have occasioned an act of ritual self-immolation?
   We Americans are not entirely unfamiliar with crude and/or hateful speech from high-ranking officials. Remember former Interior Secretary James Watt boasting that a panel under his purview included diverse ethnic and racial groups - and "a cripple" besides? Remember former Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz's appallingly crude throwaway line about the sartorial and sexual preferences of black Americans? That grossly offensive stuff ultimately, and rightly, resulted in their departure from public life.
   Happily, there was one voice of common sense in Washington: Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, skewered not Howard, but the mayor who had accepted Howard's resignation. "This whole episode speaks loudly to where we are on issues of race," he said, adding pointedly, "Seems to me the mayor has been niggardly in his judgment of this issue."
   Then Bond made an even more telling point: Our tendency to get all wrapped around the axle on such issues as this is doubly regrettable in light of our "real hesitation to speak to the serious large issues."
   By the time you read this, the uproar may have run its course. Mayor Williams said last week that, depending on the outcome of an investigation, Howard might return to his staff - but in a different job.
   Having dutifully torched himself, Howard may now experience a second act in his District of Columbia career. The episode itself, however, will linger for at least a while as an object lesson in the power of words - and in our own propensity for misunderstanding both words and one another.
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   (You can reach Peterson by phone at 886-3772 or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com.)