Negro: It's A Good Thing

Granted, I missed the beginning of this conversation. But, why on earth would Andy Rooney be at all preoccupied with the words black or negro. Heck, why didn't he add colored?

ROONEY:The word negro, which is a perfectly good word, it�s a strong word and a good word. I don�t see anything wrong with that.

How do you feel about this?

Now, I have witnessed some younger people get bent out of shape about the word negro because many of them were somehow taught that it was derogatory and a synonym for nigger. I've often had to explain that they needed to slow their roll and understand that it is not a bad word. During my stint on this earth and in this country we've been called colored, negro, Afro-American, black and now the very inaccurate African American (that's right, I think that Teresa Heinz Kerry has more claim to the label African American than me - a native black/negro/colored American). But, as I told a curious person from my college dorm who asked which of those words I wanted to be called, "my name is Susan and I prefer that."