[Vwoolf] Nigs, nicknames, & racial slurs
Stuart N. Clarke
stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com
Sat Feb 9 12:18:27 EST 2019
The Virginia Woolf Society of GB has moved some of its events from Senate House, U of London, because of the boycott over outsourcing support staff . . . to the Oriental Club.
Is there no safe haven?
Stuart
From: Jane Marie Garrity via Vwoolf
Sent: Saturday, February 9, 2019 5:06 PM
To: Kristin Czarnecki
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] Nigs, nicknames, & racial slurs
Anne, thank you for doing the OED research and pointing this out!
Your observation reminds me of another kind of lingering query that at times pops up on this list for me: is it really OK to have an “Oriental Club” in 2019? I’m referring here to the name of the private London club founded by the Duke of Wellington for returning colonial officers and officials from India. I understand that this is the historic name, but what is the argument for retaining it today? As Anne says, given the pervasive racism of our cultural moment it seems hard to fully grasp the utility of still using the original nomenclature.
Thanks, and happy weekend all—
Jane
Jane Garrity
Associate Professor of English
Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies
University of Colorado at Boulder
226 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0226
Jane.Garrity at Colorado.Edu
On Feb 9, 2019, at 10:02 AM, Kristin Czarnecki via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
...meant as a racial slur, I should have added.
Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message:
From: Kristin Czarnecki via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Date: February 9, 2019 at 11:59:18 AM EST
To: Anne Fernald <fernald at fordham.edu>, "vwoolf at lists.osu.edu" <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Nigs, nicknames, & racial slurs
Reply-To: Kristin Czarnecki <Kristin_Czarnecki at georgetowncollege.edu>
CAUTION: This email originated from outside Georgetown College's Email System. DO NOT CLICK on any links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Yes—and it’s the nickname Clare Kendry’s husband gives her in Nella Larsen’s novel Passing.
Sent from my iPad
On Feb 9, 2019, at 11:35 AM, Anne Fernald via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
CAUTION: This email originated from outside Georgetown College's Email System. DO NOT CLICK on any links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
When Stuart first sent this email, the subject line made me gasp. It was too close to the racial slur. Which made me wonder: might Lord Cecil's nickname be connected to the racial slur? Given the frequency of references to "n*** brown" as a descriptor of clothing in the teens, twenties, and thirties, I think it might. I looked in the OED, and yes, "nig" is short for the racial slur:
nig, n.3
[...]colloq. and regional (usually derogatory and offensive).Thesaurus »
Categories »
= nigger n. (in various senses).c1832 T. D. Rice Jim Crow x De Nigs in ole Virginny Be so black dey shine.
1840 Daily Picayune (New Orleans) 20 Sept. 2/2 Two little nigs..had a most scientific set-to at the corner.
1860 R. F. Burton Lake Regions Central Afr. I. 137 He resents..the name of ‘Nigger’, or ‘Nig’—Jupiter Tonans has heard of the offensive dissyllable..but has he heard of the more offensive monosyllable which was forced upon the abbreviating Anglo-Saxon by the fatal necessity of requiring to repeat the word so frequently?
1879 Mrs. A. G. F. E. James Indian Househ. Managem. 43 Treat your servants as fellow-creatures, not as ‘nigs’—a term too often applied..to the Indian natives.
1916 J. B. Cooper Coo-oo-ee xvi. 245 He never wipes the glass slobbered over by dozens of dirty nigs!
As to why Lord Cecil might have that nickname, short of consulting the full bio, I can only conjecture. Was he darker complected than his family members? Was it because of his colonial work in Egypt? Or, like lots of nicknames, did it come from some more obscure bit of personal history.
In any case, watching this conversation unfold simultaneously with some pretty sorry racial incidents of blackface here in the U.S. and it struck me that it would be disingenuous to pretend that Lord Cecil's nickname, Nigs, was unconnected to the history of racism.
Anne
On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 3:57 PM Peter D L Stansky via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
Thanks Stuart for the mention of the Rudikoff book as I was involved with its publication. It was published by SPOSS, the Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship and copies should still be available on Amazon at very low prices. SPOSS also published my William Morris to Sergeant Pepper which contains a section on Bloomsbury.
Best to all, Peter
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
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From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+stansky=stanford.edu at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 1:03:27 AM
To: Barbara Lounsberry
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Nigs
Ref. to Lord Edward Cecil, L1 189. For anything to do with the aristocracy & VW, it’s worth starting with a rarely referenced, but excellent book, RUDIKOFF, Sonya, "Ancestral Houses: Virginia Woolf and the Aristocracy" (1999).
Stuart
From: Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf
Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 4:24 PM
To: Barbara Lounsberry
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Nigs
Making the grenadier connection is even more persuasive. I think we might be able to search VW’s connections to the Cecils to find how close (as it were) she ever got to Lord Edward. Kitty Maxse’s husband Leo was a brother of Lady Violet, Lord Edward’s wife.
Stuart (whose mother was born in Lasswade)
From: Barbara Lounsberry
Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 4:14 PM
To: Stuart N. Clarke
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Nigs
Stuart:
Thank you for your illuminating (and, to me, very persuasive) information on Lord Edward Cecil and Edward Pargiter of The Years.
Your reference to Lord Cecil and the Grenadier Guards makes me wish to add that I believe Woolf associated Kitty Malone in The Years with Sir Walter Scott (Woolf's own diary "father"). Kitty's married name is Lasswade (name of Scott's home) and she much prefers the north over Oxford and London. Kitty is call "The Grenadier." In the British Army, a grenadier was a member of the first regiment of household infantry. Grenadiers were specially selected foot soldiers in elite units who threw grenades. Thus Woolf links Kitty to both Scott and to female household battle.
Hope this adds. No doubt you can add more to this.
Barbara Lounsberry
On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 4:31 AM Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
You will recall that that’s Eleanor’s nickname for Edward Pargiter in “The Years” (mentioned 4 times). Apparently, that was VWS and HN’s name for Nigel (see CUP edn 420 39:13). But why should that be a nickname for *Edward*?
I’ve found a more persuasive inspiration for the nickname. The family called Lord Edward Cecil, Nigs, although I don’t know why. Perhaps if I looked up a biography, I would find out. Anyway, see here from the ODNB:
Cecil, Lord Edward Herbert Gascoyne- (1867–1918), army officer and administrator, was born in London on 12 July 1867, the fourth son and sixth of eight children of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, third marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903), prime minister, and his wife, Georgina Caroline (1827–1899), daughter of Sir Edward Hall Alderson and his wife, Georgina Drewe. Known to his family as Nigs, and to friends as Ned, Edward Cecil was educated privately and at Eton College, and was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards in 1887.
Stuart
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Anne E. Fernald (she/her)
Professor of English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Special Advisor to the Provost for Faculty Development
fernald at fordham.edu
Rose Hill: Cunniffe 211
718-817-3034
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Spring 2019 Office Hours: T/F 9:15-11:00 at Lincoln Center & by appt.
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