The "B" Word

When I was working at Meade Data Central in 1990/1991, I answered phones and helped people extract information from the LEXIS/NEXIS database. I would tell callers that if they could put it into words, I could search it for them. One day, I got a call from a guy who told me that a supervisor at work had referred to one of the cleaning staff as a “black bitch.” He said that the other cleaning women were so incensed that they demanded that the foulmouthed supervisor be fired, or they would quit. The man asked me if there were any similar cases on record.

I got into the NLRB database. (During the Roosevelt Administration, Congress authorized the creation of special courts to hear labor-related cases. Appeals from the NLRB go directly to the Circuit Court of Appeals and from there to the Supreme Court.) So I searched “b-l-a-c-k w/1 b-i-t-c-h” to pick up any reference in an NLRB case to the term. I was a bit surprised when I found that the number of “black bitch” cases numbered in the teens. Some people might hear this and conclude that Americans are overly sensitive. That’s one point of view. The flip side of the argument is that, in the past generation, language that might have been tolerated fifty years ago is now grounds for a lawsuit.

Personally, I think that the only acceptable place for the term, “black bitch” would be at a gathering of the American Kennel Club.”