# CNN reporter calls black man "boy" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 20, 2008, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252 "2008-01-20T12:22:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/62 "2008-01-20T18:16:47Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Okay then, nevermind. [/QUOTE] Well done, boy! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/63 "2008-01-20T18:21:55Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] No, but you’d get a lot less grief. [/QUOTE] I’ve seen no evidence of that. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/64 "2008-01-20T18:28:18Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Well done, boy! 😉 [/QUOTE] How dare you insult a member of the great indigenous peoples of north America. Calling a Native American “boy” is tantamount to…oh nevermind… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/65 "2008-01-20T18:29:54Z")
[QUOTE=askeptic] How dare you insult a member of the great indigenous peoples of north America. Calling a Native American “boy” is tantamount to…oh nevermind… [/QUOTE] Hey, if you go out to dinner with him, just don’t say you have a “reservation”! ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/66 "2008-01-20T18:36:51Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Hey, if you go out to dinner with him, just don’t say you have a “reservation”! [/QUOTE] Better not invite him to a football game in Kansas either. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/67 "2008-01-20T18:40:39Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] No, but you’d get a lot less grief. Why? Aside from **Liberal"s** pit posting history, you’re black and a lot of us whites have been conditioned to believe we are not qualified to judge the feelings of blacks, not having experienced your specific perspective in American culture. [/QUOTE] While posting history and the personality of a longtime poster certainly influences the way people will _express_ their reactions to a Pitting like this, I still don’t think it affects their opinion of the facts themselves. It would be out of character for **monstro** to post a rant like this, and I think people would be puzzled, but I don’t believe for a second that it would influence anyone to agree that Malveaux’s remark was racist. I think possibly that **Lib** was trying to insinuate some kind of hypocrisy or double-standard in comparison to Kelly Tilghman’s “lynch Tiger Woods” remark on the Golf Channel, but from everything I saw, both on this board and on the media, most everyone saw that as a complete non-scandal with the exception of Al Sharpton, who hardly represents either liberal opinion or sets any tone for the media. ---
**Author:** ![8675309](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/8/ea5d25/32.png) [@8675309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/8675309)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/68 "2008-01-20T18:44:32Z")
I live in the South and “Southern boy” is a term used for males of all ages and colors, with no offense meant. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/69 "2008-01-20T18:56:59Z")
[QUOTE=monstro] It’s not like you showed any deferrence in [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=416291&highlight=monstro). If you’ve been conditioned, you certainly don’t post like it. [/QUOTE] To be fair **monstro** , though I opened that thread in response to your reaction, the purpose of that thread was to present an understanding of whether or not Imus, a white, was racist or not. You’ll note that I responded to you respectfully without any insult or derogatory remark though the thread was in the pit. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/70 "2008-01-20T19:13:08Z")
[QUOTE=Cartooniverse] ETA: **JayJay** and I clearly disagree on this in-culture name-calling. However, you don’t see me calling **JayJay** names. 😉 [/QUOTE] Well, like I wrote, I can’t dictate what words anyone uses. But even if I could, I wouldn’t. The “rescue” of derogatory epithets by the affected groups just makes me uncomfortable, nothing more than that. It’s entirely a personal quirk. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/71 "2008-01-20T19:17:33Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Well, like I wrote, I can’t dictate what words anyone uses. But even if I could, I wouldn’t. The “rescue” of derogatory epithets by the affected groups just makes me uncomfortable, nothing more than that. It’s entirely a personal quirk. 🙂 [/QUOTE] And just to be clear, I wasn’t endorsing the practice across the board. I just think the example you gave was not a particularly good one, if your point was to indicate how that incident could have been racist. But it’s not like you can draw a clear line and say: this side of the line is racist, and this side isn’t. I think most people around here are smart enough to understand that. ---
**Author:** ![9thFloor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/b487fb/32.png) [@9thFloor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/9thFloor)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/72 "2008-01-20T19:32:24Z")
If anything, it can even be seen as a wonderfully post-racial expression. Context matters, as does the speaker. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/73 "2008-01-20T19:39:34Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Aired this morning at about 7:10 on _CNN Sunday Morning_, reporter Suzanne Malveaux said, “And TJ [the black anchor], you’re a Southern — a nice Southern boy, but don’t call me ‘ma’am’, 'cause you’ll put me in the older category here, okay?” After 20 minutes, I still find nothing on the Internet about this egregious verbal face-slap, so apparently Malveaux is getting away with it and CNN doesn’t care. [/QUOTE] I too thought this was really bad satire without a link to its original thread. But since I’ve learned that you were serious in your OP, Liberal, I wanted to quote it back to you to read again. You, in all seriousness, saw something on television at 7:10 in the AM on a Sunday. You then immediately spent 20 minutes scouring the internet message boards, Google, CNN, to find out if people were talking about it. Discovering that no one on earth was even awake to hear her comment, you come onto the SDMB not to inform us of what happened a mere 50 minutes ago on a lazy Sunday morning, but to chastise us for our hypocritcal ways because we didn’t immediately grab for the phone in the middle of an REM cycle and dial CNN’s news director to express how Malveaux should be fired for her comment? I mean, even _if_ she said something racist - which she didn’t - you’re actually pitting us because we didn’t react to something literally 99% of the world didn’t see and occurred only 50 minutes before you started ranting? Seriously? What the fuck, Lib. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/74 "2008-01-20T19:40:06Z")
_Breaking news:_ **Punch Line to “I Just Flew in From Cleveland” Joke Incites Race Riot** ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/75 "2008-01-20T19:56:50Z")
[QUOTE=Enderw24] literally 99% of the world [/QUOTE] How dare you display such blatant Amero-centrism. 99% of the U.S. didn’t see it. 99.95+% of the _world_ didn’t, and that’s generously assuming an audience of ~3 million. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/76 "2008-01-20T20:00:28Z")
This thread is one giant whoosh, right? Right? Using the word “boy” is not automatically racist when said to a black person. Where on earth did you get this idea? Why are we even bringing up words like “nigger”? It’s not analogous to “boy” in this context in any sense. Here’s the same situation with the word “woman”: She’s a lovely woman. (Not offensive) Get me a beer, woman. (Offensive) ---
**Author:** ![Pixilated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aeb1de/32.png) [@Pixilated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixilated)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/77 "2008-01-20T20:07:36Z")
Oh.my.gods. A racial slur? Puh-leeze! Are you serious? Ok, fine. I’m white, female, and from the NORTH/Midwest. Even I know the difference in the terms “Southern boy” and M’am - and this was before moving to the South. Must EVERYTHING be subject to throwing out a “racial flag”? I mean, it wasnt like she accompanied the term with a question such as “How much fried chicken, chitlins(?), and watermelon you been eatin?” With the Southern culture I, as well as my children, did have to learn to adapt to a few things that are a part of its culture. Such as -I had to learn not to refer to “energized kids” (the ones that bounce all over the place) as “l’il monkeys”. Racial slur? In the North - no! In the South - yes! No matter the race of the child, it is considered as such due to the history of the term “monkey”. I did not realize this until I moved to Texas (in my mind I always envisioned Bonzo the monkey when I would call even my own kids monkeys). So - should I have been burned at the stake for making an “innocent” comment that could be twisted into something else? In the North/midwest, we address adults by their NAMES. “Yes, Ms (Miss or Mrs) so-n-so” or “Mr Whatchamacallhim” - but very rarely “Sir” and M’am" were used (I think some smaller towns did use them). Moving to the South, my children had to learn to use them - when they addressed a teacher by their name, they would quickly be corrected and I recall one of my children being scorned when doing this and the teacher telling them they have earned the RIGHT to be addressed as M’am. The _right?_ to be addressed as M’am? WTF??? Ok, fine. I did schedule a conference with the (hard-nosed) teacher (who happens to be “african-american”) to ask for some patience with my youngest and explained the Northern culture vs South and how showing respect is different. I also explained to her that I am learning as well, but will practice with my kids. For awhile there, I wasnt getting very far with her until I started asking questions about phrases that are common in the north and why but how it’s interpreted in the South and why. Then she was able to see exactly how “sheltered” we were growing up in the midwest. She was a little more understanding after that and her tone with correcting my youngest was more acceptable and my daughter caught on and went from “Mrs. Jackson”, to “Mrs Jackson, M’am” to just “M’am”. Heck. We say “good ol’boy” or “country boy” (vs redneck, perhaps?), but when used in a singular form we all knew it was demeaning, thus avoided. Otherwise, used in a term of endearment. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/78 "2008-01-20T20:37:26Z")
“You there! Boy!” “Yessir?” “What day is it, my boy?” “To-day? Why, it’s Andrew Jackson’s birthday!” “Then I haven’t missed it! The Spirits have done it all in one night! --Hallo, boy; do you know the poulterer’s shop on the corner?” “I should hope I did!” “Intelligent boy! Remarkable boy! Do you know if they’ve sold the Prize Turkey that was hanging in the window?” “What, the one as big as me?” “What a delightful boy! It’s a pleasure to talk to him! --Yes, my buck!” “It’s hanging there now!” “Go and buy it! I am in earnest: come back in five minutes and I’ll give you a twenty-dollar bill!” ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/79 "2008-01-20T20:43:34Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] “Intelligent boy! Remarkable boy! Do you know if they’ve sold the Prize Turkey that was hanging in the window?” [/QUOTE] “Sorry Guv’na, it was posted as the OP in this very thread, just this mornin’!” ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/80 "2008-01-20T21:20:34Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] To be fair **monstro** , though I opened that thread in response to your reaction, the purpose of that thread was to present an understanding of whether or not Imus, a white, was racist or not. You’ll note that I responded to you respectfully without any insult or derogatory remark though the thread was in the pit. [/QUOTE] Respectfully or not, your response was to deny that I had a right to be offended. Whether **Imus** is racist is besides the point. It was blatantly clear that he had said some racially offensive things. Yet there were many, including you, arguing otherwise. I have no doubt that if I posted what **Liberal** was looking for, you would NOT be on the list of Dopers jumping in on my side. You’d be the main one telling me to stop being so hypersensitive. Am I right or wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2008, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252/81 "2008-01-20T21:47:40Z")
[QUOTE=Dead Badger] Not a great deal, no. As this appears to be part of your endlessly tiresome game of trying to paint people as hypocrites by conducting every part of the conversation in your head, the fact that you chose an example of innocent conversation between African Americans to do it merely makes the whole thing slightly funnier. I see you’re even _still_ trying to claim that you’ve demonstrated something here. What’s _wrong_ with you? You’ve picked a stupid example that’s not comparable to the golfing incident (which I assume this is about). You’ve missed a major fact that, even were the comment not completely innocent to start with, renders the whole exercise futile. Then, you’ve assumed that everyone responding to you thinks the lynching comment was inexcusable, you’ve assumed they’re all leftists and you’ve assumed they’re all only excusing the “southern boy” comment because it’s CNN, none of which you’ve even remotely justified. There can hardly be anything left up your ass to pull out save that stick, and yet you’re still acting as if you’ve struck some rhetorical blow for right-thinking. It’s utterly inexplicable, it really is. [/QUOTE] …damn Also note the misleading title. If he’d replaced “boy” with “southern boy” nobody would have even come into the thread to figure it out. He’s obviously familiar with the difference and is employing it to get people to read his thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-reporter-calls-black-man-boy/434252.md?page=5)