By Dahleen Glanton
Tomeika Broussard thought it was so absurd when she overheard her supervisor refer to her as a "reggin" that she just laughed. Then she realized it was the n-word spelled backward.
The only African-American in the small medical clinic in Los Gatos, Calif., Broussard said she was subjected to racial slurs almost daily. They were not the overt ones that most people would immediately recognize, but rather subtle, surreptitious code words that sometimes take a while to figure out.
"When 'reggin' came up, I'd never heard that word but I knew it was negative. So I had this kind of nervous, shocked laugh," said Broussard, 31, who was awarded $44,000 in damages last year in a racial harassment lawsuit filed after she was fired from her job as a file clerk. "I didn't know whether it was illegal, but I knew it was not OK. It was humiliating."
Federal officials say they have seen an increase in harassment complaints involving coded words and images in the workplace. Whether it is geared toward racial groups, religious affiliations, sex or sexual orientation, code words have proliferated in recent years through the Internet, where Web sites provide forums for creating, discussing and spreading new words promoting intolerance.
With Democratic Sen. Barack Obama as the first African-American to head a major-party ticket, political analysts predict race will become a central issue in the presidential election. Negative messages about race used in the campaigns and in the media could spill over into the general public, the analysts said, conjuring old stereotypes and stirring fears that create racial tension.
"Historically, when a political party is identified with African-Americans, the opposing party uses race as a way to peel off white support," said Michael Dawson, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. "You can't do that by invoking the Civil War anymore, so what we have seen is this way to tap into racial resentments of some white Americans by talking about issues that are perfectly acceptable but have, in some minds, linkage to blacks and Latinos."
Terms such as "welfare queens" and "crime-ridden neighborhoods" have long been used to refer to African-Americans, Dawson said. In recent years, other analysts said, discussions about patriotism have increasingly become coded with phrases such as "full-blooded Americans" used to exclude certain ethnic groups, particularly Latino immigrants.
During the Democratic primary season, Sen. Hillary Clinton was accused of using racial code when she said that Obama's support among "hardworking Americans, white Americans," was weakening. The inference, critics said, is that only white Americans work hard.
The media played a role in promoting that concept, said Steve Rendall, senior analyst at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a liberal media watchdog group. The biggest coded message, he said, was when pundits turned "working-class voters," into "white working-class voters."
Reading the subtleties
"We hear code words all the time in talk radio. It's a constant drumbeat," said Rendall, who also co-hosts FAIR's national radio show, "CounterSpin." "Code word bigotry is a secret code, a secret handshake between the listening audience and the host.
"Either conscious or unconscious, there is sometimes a mispronunciation of [Obama's] name or dwelling on his middle name [Hussein], suggesting that he is some covert Muslim. It is not overt racism but it is xenophobic."
Since the first racial code word lawsuit in 1996, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has seen an influx of cases involving racially coded messages. In the earlier case, the federal appeals court in Philadelphia overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of a credit manager who sued Cort Furniture Rental. Carol Aman said she and other black employees were referred to as "you people" and "that one in there."
"People are smart and know they cannot use blatant terms, so they get the message across in other ways," said Sanya Hill Maxion, an EEOC lawyer in San Francisco who represented Broussard. "We are seeing different things trickle out."
As the country becomes more diverse, cases also have resulted from culture clashes between African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians, according to the EEOC.
For example, an assembly technician in San Jose, Calif., sued the company he worked for last year, claiming he was harassed by a Vietnamese co-worker who repeatedly played loud rap music with anti-black racial epithets. The lawsuit charged the co-worker also sang the lyrics within earshot of him.
In another case, a black employee was repeatedly called "Cornelius" in a reference to the ape character from the movie "Planet of the Apes." Another case involved a man of Chinese and Italian ancestry who was taunted daily by his foreman, who referred to him as " Bruce Lee."
Coded messages also have long been seen in political campaigns. During the presidential campaign 20 years ago, supporters of George H.W. Bush were accused of using code to ignite racial furor among white voters against Michael Dukakis by running an ad featuring the case of Willie Horton, a black man convicted of raping a white woman in Massachusetts. Two years ago during a tight Senate race, Tennessee Republicans featured a television ad that portrayed a white woman saying she had met Rep. Harold Ford, who is African-American, at a Playboy party. Ford lost the election.
Recently, Fox News Channel identified Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama," a term used to describe unwed mothers. Fox officials said that a producer "exercised poor judgment" during the segment.
Complaints overblown?
Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, said the topic of code words has been overplayed.
"Any criticism of Obama is translated as a coded racial attack because he is black," said Bozell. "Conservatives have a language to their fellow conservatives. Liberals have a language to fellow liberals. African-Americans have a language to African-Americans. I don't see anything wrong with that.
But the University of Chicago's Dawson said code words can do damage even when their speakers say they were just joking or that they made an innocent mistake by using them.
"They're invoking harmful stereotypes," Dawson said.
Earlier this month, Maurica Grant, 32, who was fired from her job as a technical inspector with NASCAR, filed a lawsuit claiming that she was repeatedly harassed. Grant, who is black, said co-workers called her "Nappy Headed Mo" and "Queen Sheba." According to Grant, they also said she worked on "colored people time," meaning she often was late.
EEOC officials said they also have seen cases of code words used to identify ethnic groups in job applications.
"Racial harassment is alive and well and manifesting itself in so many forms, especially with advances in technology allowing programs that screen out certain addresses and names associated with certain groups," said Paula Bruner, appellate attorney for the EEOC in Washington. "It is a lot more pervasive than people appreciate."
According to Bruner, code words also show up on age and gender cases.
"An employer might use terms 'youthful' or 'enthusiastic' to describe the person that they want. Or they might say, 'We want someone who is more progressive.' That's like saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks," she said.
Meanwhile, Broussard, who was 26 when she filed the lawsuit, has tried to move on. But the memories are still painful, she said.
"I can't believe I put up with that kind of racism. It was 2004, and I thought that was unheard of," she said.
Four years later, new words crop up every day, fueled by the Internet.
Contributors to the online Urban Dictionary offer several uses for "reggin." Among them: "Used to trick black people."
Another Web site, the Racial Slur Database, defines 2,649 slurs. According to the site, its mission is "helping to make the world a better place."
Labels: African Americans, racism, Stereotyping
