NEGRO “AUNT” AND “UNCLE.”
A correspondent of the Atlanta Constitution, who signs himself or herself “Georgia,” asks:
Editors Constitution: Why is it that so many of the respectable white people of this country claim blood affinity with the Negro race by condescending to call them “aunt” and “uncle”? An “aunt” is a father’s or mother’s sister, an “uncle” is a father’s or mother’s brother. Now, why should a Negro be made to believe that he is a blood relation of white families by calling them “aunt” and “uncle,” terms of the highest family respect? Is there any wonder that some Negroes think they are as good as a white man, when they are called by these endearing names? The Negro is an imitator of the white man, and if we are to keep the races apart, let no such example be set for the Negro’s imitation.
What absurdity this is, and withal how insulting to the colored people. Not unlikely the person who wrote it was brought up by a colored nurse. The genuine affection with which many of the Southern white people speak of the old colored uncle and aunty is often very touching. They belong, however, to the “Old South.” The “New South” is speaking another kind of language. When Mr. Grady in his speech at the New England Society’s dinner in New York informed his auditors that the New South recognized fully the Negro’s rights, it must have been in grim sarcasm. Did he mean by the New South the white people of Georgia? That interpretation of his language would save the other Southern States from the censure of his misrepresentation. But Georgia, by the recent conduct of its Legislature in the discussion and manipulation of the Glenn bill, contradicts nearly everything Mr. Grady said in that speech on that subject. The right to be legislated against, to be branded with essential and eternal inferiority as a race, to be insulted, to be abused, to be discriminated against at every point,—this is what the white people of Georgia believe if the voice and conduct of their legislators mean anything. We presume Mr. Grady did not know this when he made that speech. If he did know it, he violated the hospitality that honored him as its guest.
But the colored people will have their rights. The time is not yet, but it is coming. Hostile legislation and violence cannot prevent it. Christian education will solve the problem.