Andy Rooney's Negro Problem

Andy Rooney's big mouth has gotten him in trouble again. The question is, does he deserve to be?

The Drudge Report posted an item about Rooney's recent appearance on Imus, on which he made some comments which have generated a lot of adverse reactions on the blogosphere.

Pat Cambell down in Florida asked, a tad rhetorically:

"What year is this clown living in? Will Rooney take heat for this? Will it be Andy "The Greek" Rooney treatment?"

(In other words, will Rooney be fired for his un-PC comments, if you don't remember what happened to Jimmy the Greek. He made what were alleged to be insensitive remarks and lost his job with CBS because of them.)

Robert George, on his "Ragged Thots" blog, also slammed Rooney on the basis of the Drudge quote:

"The phrase "senile-old-coot-whose-best-days-are-long-behind-him-and-besides-he-was-never-funny-to-begin-with is a perfectly good phrase. There is nothing wrong with that."

Now, I'm not all that crazy about Andy Rooney. Never have been. But does he really deserve all this opprobrium?

This, according to CBS, is what Rooney actually said:

Rooney: “I object every time I hear the words ‘African-American,’ you know? I don’t know why we have gotten caught with that.”

Imus: “Yeah, I don’t either.”

Rooney: “I mean, am I an ‘Irish-American?’”

Imus: “What should I say, just ‘black’ right?”

Rooney: “Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with ‘black.’ Growing up, it’s funny how words get to be opprobrious. The word ‘negro,’ perfectly good word. It’s a strong word and a good word. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Mostly it’s not necessary to identify anyone by skin color. But I don’t care for ‘African-American.’”

Imus: “I won’t use it anymore.”

Is that so horrible? Really? I mean, from the tone of some of the blogs you'd think he was saying something on the order of, "You know, ol' Adolf wasn't such a bad guy after all..."

Is to question the appropriateness of the expression "African-American" a priori proof of racism, as some bloggers would have us believe? Because I don't think Rooney's comments are anything to get worked up over. At a time when young black men (ooops, make that "African-American men") are calling themselves and each other the dreaded "N" word every two seconds, is it really so heinous to wonder why we are shackled with the cumbersome term "African-American"?

Now, people have a right to refer to themselves by any term they want. If I felt like calling myself a "Hibernian-American" I suppose I could -- if, as James Joyce's father once said in a somewhat different context, I wanted to make a bloody fool of myself. But I also think that we should not be stigmatized by questioning why we use certain terms to refer to certain people.

After all, Andy Rooney isn't the only person to advocate going back to the word "negro" -- if that's really what he was doing. Stanley Crouch (who is either black, a negro or African-American, depending on whom you ask) has made similar comments in terms far stronger:

"Being called something other than Negro will not better the state of the people who now walk around challenging others to call them African-Americans. They think that to be proud and effective, people with dark skins of a certain pedigree need to know they are connected to the grandeur of Africa, the fountain of civilization. Hogwash.

Clearly, knowing that they are Africans has done nothing special for Africans themselves, as we can see in the massacres in Rwanda during the 1990s, the many brutal African dictatorships and the abundance on the continent of backward ideas about women, slavery and a number of other things.

People can call themselves whatever they want. But the challenges facing this nation and its darker ethnic group will not be solved by anything other than deep thinking and hard work. Pride comes from accomplishment. Cosmetic nonsense will not get it."

It's a good thing Andy Rooney didn't say that. I shudder to think what might have happened to him if he had.

Tom Moran