Revs. Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III joined Boston Public Radio on Monday, where they reflected on the recent reckoning around words and phrases in the American English lexicon with roots in American slavery and Jim Crow segregation — like “cakewalk” and “grandfathering.”
The conversation was spurred by a recent Boston Globe piece highlighting decisions from book publishers, politicians and even the Massachusetts Appeals Court, to ditch language with racist origins.
"It all has to do with a previous moment in history, usually during slavery,” Price explained. “And so there’s a renewed attempt to try to remove some of these words from the regular course of conversation — to replace them, or even refine them, identifying them as offensive language."
“I don’t think it’s so much about refining them as much as the need to bleach them out of our American public lexicon,” Monroe said, adding that she’d like to see conversation about ending use of the n-word in everyday life as well.
