Did you know that the word “niggardly” has nothing to do with race? To be niggardly is to be cheap; stingy.
That said, however, I don\’t recall any time I\’ve ever heard it used except by racists, as a cowardly way of saying “nigger” without actually using the word.
If someone who has a problem with Black people uses that term when discussing something related to Blacks, you can bet your bottom dollar he/she is just champing at the bit to have you make an accusation of racism, whereupon he/she will “educate” you about what the true meaning of the word is (wink wink).
With that in mind, please read the beginning of Sean Sullivan\’s article in the Washington Post, about Texas Governor Rick Perry\’s comparison of homosexuality to alcoholism:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) compared homosexuality to alcoholism Wednesday, arguing that both can be overcome.
“Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that,” Perry said during an appearance at the Commonwealth Club of California, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. “I may have the genetic coding that I\’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.”
Perry has advanced an argument along the same lines before. In his 2008 book, he wrote, “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” adding, “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”
Nice going, Rick. Now tell us: what point are you trying to make? As if we didn\’t know.
You don\’t like homosexuality and want to communicate as much without saying it in so many words? So you figure that by equating it to a “sickness”, a disease like alcoholism – i.e. undesirable but “curable” through abstinence – you get to pump out your prejudice without having to answer for it?
Nope, sorry big guy. It doesn\’t work that way.
I doubt there are many gay and lesbian people who care whether you approve of their lifestyles. But would I bet a great many of them – and a great many heteros as well – now see you as too cowardly to say it out loud, so you resort to code words.
Time to man up, Governor. All those nice folks who think other people\’s sexual orientation is their business are probably salivating at the thought of you “coming out”. So say what you really think, and don\’t hide behind the code words. Because that would be, uh…..niggardly.
Then please do the rest of us a favor, and stay put in Texas.
