Ever since I was a little boy and read «Uncle Tom’s cabin» and watched a TV version of the book, I have been interested in politics. In my teens, the Kennedy brethren and Martin Luther King, jr. were great heroes of mine because they fought the discrimination of the American Negroes.
Today, if I had written that, «the treatment of the American Negroes is a stain on the history of the USA», I had risked being prosecuted and harassed as a racist. This is completely insane.
As insane as master builder Madland, who jokingly announced Negro work on his car, is prosecuted for racism by an overly ardent and presumably leftist police officer.
I remember the first time a Negro arrived in the small village in Western Norway where my grandparents lived, deep in the Ryfylkefjorden. There was a rumour among the people there that a Negro had booked in at the camping area. 18-year-old youth who could drive a car drove slowly back and forth past the camping area hoping to catch a glimpse of the Negro.
There was no harmful intention; nobody spoke ill of the Negro. They were simply curious, and they labelled him Negro and not nigger or dark skinned. Hellbillies sang about «a Negro at Ål railway station».
And Torbjørn Egner sang about «negergutten Vesle Hoa» (the little Negro boy, Hoa). Nobody responded critically to that.
Now, however, it is criminal to use the very word that we learned at school to be the correct one and that we used while growing up. When this strange altering of language was implemented, and how and why, I do not know.
Somebody in the contribution to an article in NRK, thinks that «during the last decenniums, we have achieved greater knowledge of the consequences of the slave trade and of the suppression it led to through the centuries». This is, however, incorrect. I knew quite a lot about the slave trade and suppression of Negroes already as a small boy; there is nothing new to it.
I have always used the term «Negro» and there is nothing negative to it. The term «Nigger» was negative. It is like the difference between «Pakistani» and «Paki».
The term «Negro work», used by the master builder, may be disputed, but that depends on what each one of us mean by it. Some think it means «shit work» while others, like me, think it is a designation of hard, physical work, maybe routine work not wanted by everyone, but that physically strong Negroes commendably often has undertaken. In other words, something positive. And, should one be prosecuted for using a word that somebody else considers a little negative? In that case, we must finish most political debates.
I have maybe become conservative; however, I keep my childhood education. I keep using the word that I was taught at school to be the correct one. Then, I may get prosecuted for racism; however, it is far from that.
Translated to English by Lars Hoem