INSULT IN THE WOODPILE.
Sir,-While realising that "Progress" has written an amusing letter on Wellington weather, I feel very strongly that it is about time people in this country learned to stop using idioms which have a deeper significance than is often thought. At the present time when racial equality is a plank on which any progressive-minded person stands, it strikes me as extremely incongruous that one who calls himself "Progress" can. use such a phrase as "nigger in the woodpile." Not only is the term "nigger" one of disparagement, but the suggestion of racial inferiority of the coloured person being the obvious bad man should be erased once and for all. The answer to: this, "Oh it never occurred to me-~-one just uses these phrases without thinking," is not good enough, just as the consistent use by Hollywood of coloured people as always representative of the servant or coolie class is not good
enough,
R.M.
(Wellington),
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450420.2.13.10
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 304, 20 April 1945, Page 5
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157INSULT IN THE WOODPILE. New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 304, 20 April 1945, Page 5
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