Well, aside from the social acceptability of using the word "nigger" to denote oppressed people in general, I really don't see student-faculty relationships (at the university level) nearly as bad as this article portrays.
I believe this sentiment was common. My father was in graduate school for the first 11 years of my life. At some point during that time, I learned this joke no kid should really know at that age:
Q:Why did Lincoln free the slaves?
A:Because he knew there would always be grad students.
"The denotations of nigger also comprehend non-white and racially disadvantaged people; the US politician Ron Dellums said, “... it's time for somebody to lead all of America’s niggers”.[23] Jerry Farber's 1967 protest, The Student as Nigger invoked the word as a metaphor for the victims of an authoritarian society. In 1969, in the UK, in the course of being interviewed by a Nova magazine reporter, artist Yoko Ono said, “... woman is the nigger of the world”; three years later, her husband, John Lennon, published the song “Woman is the Nigger of the World” (1972) — about the virtually universal exploitation of woman — proved socially and politically controversial to US sensibilities."
8 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 22.5 ms ] threadWas that comparison in common use at the time? I can't find any references elsewhere, but it seems like a strange coincidence otherwise.
"The denotations of nigger also comprehend non-white and racially disadvantaged people; the US politician Ron Dellums said, “... it's time for somebody to lead all of America’s niggers”.[23] Jerry Farber's 1967 protest, The Student as Nigger invoked the word as a metaphor for the victims of an authoritarian society. In 1969, in the UK, in the course of being interviewed by a Nova magazine reporter, artist Yoko Ono said, “... woman is the nigger of the world”; three years later, her husband, John Lennon, published the song “Woman is the Nigger of the World” (1972) — about the virtually universal exploitation of woman — proved socially and politically controversial to US sensibilities."
Looks like this essay, then, is the first example I can find of its use. Dellums wasn't in office until 1971, and the Lennon song was 72.