Wait ’til the P.C. police hear about this…
In Baltimore, there’s a fascinating historic tradition known as “Arabbing“–a term used to “describe the activities of a group of small scale entrepreneurs — mostly Black and male — who for more decades than anyone can remember have hired horses and carts to carry a variety of food items to the neighborhoods of Baltimore.” An article in today’s Baltimore Sun reports on the condemnation of stable housing for some of the ponies used by Arabbers.
What’s interesting is an editorial note from assistant managing editor John McIntyre accompanying the article about the etymology of the term “Arabber” and the newspaper’s political correctness quandary:
In Baltimore, by long-standing convention, a street peddler operating a horse-drawn cart of fresh produce is called an A-rab, pronounced AY-rab. Why we are asked, in an age of greater sensitivity about derogatory ethnic terms, do we perpetuate this one?
The term A-rab or Arabber for a street peddler has a long history in Baltimore. The city has an Arabber Preservation Society, a nonprofit organization formed in 1994 that seeks to preserve this 19th-century tradition.
The word arab in the sense of a peddler appears to derive from street arab, or, according to the unabridged Webster’s New International Dictionary, a “homeless vagabond in the streets of a city or esp. an outcast boy or girl: GAMIN.” The Oxford English Dictionary locates this sense of “a homeless little wanderer, a child of the street” in a citation from 1848. That’s the sense in which the term can be found in the Sherlock Holmes stories from the Victorian era.
This association of wanderers with Arabs likely reflects the sense of the nomadic life historically led by the peoples on the Arabian Peninsula. By extension, the person wandering the streets has been transformed from a vagrant to a vendor. The term street arab has fallen largely into disuse over the past century.
The Sun’s insistence in its house style that the Baltimore street peddlers are to be referred to as A-rabs, not Arabs, is a means of differentiating the local patois from the ethnic term. Whatever stereotypes of Arabs may be current in American culture, the Baltimore terms, A-rab and Arabber, indicate a respect for people who work very hard to make a living, and also an affectionate respect for a local tradition.
Nevertheless, since A-rab can look jarring in headline type, we are revising our stylebook to give preference to the alternative Arabber.
Will that be enough to satisfy the P.C. police? It sets up a rather interesting conflict between ethnic/racial grievance constituencies, doesn’t it? Will CAIR come after black Baltimore officials and make them whitewash a 19th-century term to conform to 21st-century sensitivities?
Decisions, decisions…
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Interesting given the flap over “Intifada” being stripped of any context at all while it inflames sensibilities of “Intifada” survivors.
Where are the non-Muslim PC police re Jews and Christians on that little number being played by Montaser and *HAMAS*.
At the rate we’re going, we’ll soon be a mute society.
I see no probelm with any Arabber, so long as they are not niggardly.
Hardly. Political Correctness is all but dead to the next generation of liberals. Forty years of John Waters and 10 seasons of South Park [not to mention the rest of the Comedy Central lineup] have pretty much ushered in it’s well-earned demise, and not a moment too soon. That doesn’t mean we won’t see it cropping up here and there, but for those of us who grew up in the tight-lipped 90s, PC is as absurd to us as it is to you.
That being said, I don’t think switching from “Arab” to “Arabber” is really that big a deal, and considering the current state of affairs in the world, “jarring” is a pretty apt description of the word “arab” in a newspaper headline.
huggybear, I think you misread, there was no switching from “Arab” to “Arabber” these guys have always been called “Arabbers”. I see them everyday in my neighborhood too, hope they don’t disappear though I have often wondered about the treatment of the ponies.
Oh I see huggybear, they changed it in the article, I don’t know why it would have been a-rab to begin with when they are called arabbers.
You get E-Coli from the carts of A-rabbers.
Will CAIR come after black Baltimore officials and make them whitewash a 19th-century term to conform to 21st-century sensitivities?
I see. I suppose we’re going to get Jewed out of our rights because some Mahometans take issue with these Gypsy-like Sambos; what Indian Givers these Wogs are!
Oh, wait, those are all 19th-century terms that either have their roots in pejorative terminology or have become pejorative. And looking at the etymology of “Arabber”, I can’t help but feel the same. It’s derived from a phrase that used the word “Arab” as equivalent to “vagrant”.
What I see in this ‘editorial’ is possibly a first step in MAKING some news….
How many people ( considering this Arabber practice has been going on for years ) would have really noticed or cared about the original article’s mention of it?
What the editorial has done is called attention to a ‘potential’ hot-bed issue, and by doing so, may have the effect of someone actually complaining about it – hence – they have a news story to cover.
Since these folks rely on these ponies for their livelihood, I would guess they probably take better care of the horse than they do their children. Not that they don’t take care of their children, just a figure of speech.
But if you ask someone from PETA, who advocate that we all live on fruits and veggies, this is cruel to treat a horse like this.
Why can’t we just let the horses run free and use a truck to peddle the produce? Oh that’s right, conserve oil, prevent global warming.
I guess they should just go on welfare. /sarc
Oh Michelle! You dug up a piece of my past having been born in Bawmer. We certainly remember the wagons coming around with the fruit and veggys. I remember asking my mother, “what are they saying?” when they would call out baaaahnaaaaaanaaaas, caaaanlooooohp,waaaawmeeelooons.
About the ponies, I do remember as a kid seeing one lying dead still hitched to the wagon one hot summer day and it bothered me a lot. That happened right in front of St Marys Catholic home for boys where Babe Ruth once was. Thanks for the memories Michelle.
If Iran gets it’s wish, we will all be so lucky to have a horse, and buggy. They are not A-rabs you know.
PETA, in New York, at one time wanted the Catskills to change its name. I doubt this will be left alone.
WalterC:
Since these folks rely on these ponies for their livelihood, I would guess they probably take better care of the horse than they do their children.
Part of me says that if they really wanted to take such wonderful care of their ponies, they’d make sure their stables are always up to code and not thus candidates for condemnation.
It is a shame Arabs are not as well behaved as Araberrs, And that is one damn fine horse that has been carefully groomed.
Am I allowed to ask why my post was deleted?
“Why we are asked, in an age of greater sensitivity about derogatory ethnic terms, do we perpetuate this one?”
Why, I would ask, when we grew up with the notion of being adult enough to ignore the petty troubles in life, are we an in age of greater sensitivity about derogatory ethnic terms?
Yes, the word ni**er is particularly troubling because it was associated with murder in the – might I add – democratic south. But as children we were also told to remember the little rhyme, “sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me.” How sensible those words sound now that we’re in an age where you’ll only be convicted of throwing sticks and stones if the sticks and stones in question are on a green list of endangered species, but calling someone a “bad name” is considered a high offense under ‘crimes against sensitivity”.
To be blunt, it’s time we all just grew the hell up and threw this stupid emotional anxiety into the waste basket along with those who expect the world to suffer under their wrath for transgressions against it and get on with the bigger picture. People are starving, their wages collected by dictorial governments which severely impact how they can raise their own children and terrorists are successfully plotting to fill our streets with the blood of the innocent. We have more important things to do than wring our hands over “greater sensitivity about derogatory ethnic terms”.
I suspect our forefathers wouldn’t know whether to laugh of be ashamed at how we have twisted into a mockery what they worked so hard and gave their lives to pass along to us because they believed in us – their future.
John McIntyre, get a life.