Everyone's making a big deal about Pat Buchanan referring to Barack Obama as "your boy" when speaking with Al Sharpton. Why? Racist undertones, overtones, dialtones, I dunno...anyway, people think it's racist. So, let me provide a little bit of context.
I've heard the phrase "your boy," "my boy," "his boy," etc., used dozens, maybe hundreds, of times in my adult life, and never in a racial context. During my summer internship in Washington, for example, my very liberal boss used the phrase to taunt me, in exactly the way Buchanan used it. This was the summer of 1987; the Iran-contra hearings were going on, and Robert Bork was getting the snot knocked out of him. Referring to Ronald Reagan, my then-boss said to me with a smile, "So, your boy's having a rough summer."
Another example: One time, a friend was describing a trip to his hometown, during which one of his close friends got knocked out cold in a bar fight. The high point of the story went more or less like this, "One thing leads to another, and they're yelling, and then they're shoving each other...and the next thing I know, my boy is lying in a heap on the floor."
So, you get the idea: "Your boy," "my boy," and so on is a slang expression for someone you know, someone you like, someone you support, or someone you're rooting for.
That, I believe, is the context in which Pat Buchanan used the phrase.
Having said all of that, it was explained to me many years ago (by an African-American woman) that any reference to "boy" around African-American men was to be avoided. "Boy," she said, was a term that had been used to demean black men historically, and that still carried a lot of emotional power.
I haven't forgotten that. Last year, for example, I was having a Buchananesque conversation with a black acquaintance in Dallas who's a big supporter of President Obama. The president was enjoying a little boomlet around the time of our conversation (during the lame duck session of Congress), and I said, "So, your guy has had a good few weeks here."
Had I been talking to a white friend, I might very well have said, "So, your boy..." But I was talking to a black friend, so I changed "boy" to "guy."
Having said "boy" wouldn't have made me racist...but "guy" was definitely the better choice. It would have been the better choice for Pat Buchanan, too.
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