Negro
[1] The term can be viewed as offensive, inoffensive, or completely neutral, largely depending on the region or country where it is used, as well as the time period and context in which it is applied.
[2][3] The term negro, literally meaning 'black', was used by the Spanish and Portuguese as a simple description to refer to the Bantu peoples that they encountered.
Negro denotes 'black' in Spanish and Portuguese, derived from the Latin word niger, meaning 'black', which itself is probably from a Proto-Indo-European root *nekw-, "to be dark", akin to *nokw-, 'night'.
From the 18th century to the late 1960s, negro (later capitalized) was considered to be the proper English-language term for people of black African origin.
[6] "If on no other issue than this one [the capitalization of the word Negro], Du Bois and Washington were in total agreement; each of them consistently urged the adoption of upper-case treatment by mainstream publications.
[8][better source needed][failed verification] In 17th-century colonial America, the term Negro had been also, according to one historian, used to describe Native Americans.
However, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the word Negro began to be criticized as having been imposed by white people, and having connotations of racial subservience and Uncle Tomism.
[13] The word Negro fell out of favor by the early 1970s and major media including Associated Press and The New York Times stopped using it that decade.
African-American linguist John McWhorter has bemoaned attacks on the use of Negro in "utterances or written reproductions of the word when referring to older texts and titles".
He cites reports that performances or publishing of certain works (William L. Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, and an anthology of Norman Mailer's works) have been avoided, "out of wariness of the word 'Negro'” used in titles; and of "two cases" between 2020-2021 "of white college professors having complaints filed against them by students for using the word 'Negro' in class when quoting older texts.
In Spain, Mexico, and almost all of Latin America, negro (lower-cased, as ethnonyms are generally not capitalized in Romance languages) means just 'black colour' and does not refer by itself to any ethnic or race unless further context is provided.
[27][28] Negrito (feminine negrita) is also a term used in the Philippines to refer to the various darker-skinned native ethnic groups that partially descended from early Australo-Melanesian migrations.
[30] However, the appropriateness of using the word to bundle people of similar physical appearances has been questioned as genetic evidence show they do not have close shared ancestry.
"[39] However, the Supreme Court, in affirming a lower-court decision, declared that the use of the term negro by itself, if it has a clearly offensive intention, may be punishable by law,[40] and is considered an aggravating factor in a criminal prosecution.
Its usage in French today (nègre littéraire) has shifted completely, to refer to a ghostwriter (écrivain fantôme), i.e. one who writes a book on behalf of its nominal author, usually a non-literary celebrity.
In 2014, the Österreichischer Presserat [de] (Austrian Press Council) claimed that the use of "Negerkinder" (negro children) in a magazine was discriminatory and offensive.
[48] In Bavaria and Upper Austria, a mixed drink consisting of wheat beer and cola is traditionally called and sold as Neger, though many restaurateurs have supported renaming it to "Cola-Weißbier" after growing criticism of the name.
[citation needed] In West Frisian, the word neger is largely considered to be a neutral term for black people with African roots.
[52][53] The word nikker (evil water spirit) is considered to be offensive and derogatory, but not necessarily racist due to the term's historic definition.
[54] A study conducted among native Finns found that 90% of research subjects considered the terms neekeri and ryssä among the most derogatory epithets for ethnic minorities.
In Russia, the term негр (negr) was commonly used in the Soviet period without any negative connotation, and its use continues in this neutral sense.
Чёрный (chyorny, 'black') as an adjective is also used in a neutral sense, and conveys the same meaning as negr, as in чёрные американцы (chyornye amerikantsy, 'black Americans').
