In The Flow of Time – March 6, 2025
In a scene, an older Black woman gives a white American man shit. And in the process, he is shamed into being polite. And my fellow-writer feedback, “In 1820, no white man would ever be polite to a Black woman.” True! But the woman in this scene is not a slave. She is a free woman of color!
There is nuance here, and language needs to convey that. So this quickly graduates into a general problem: in 1820 New Orleans, what did people call each other? There are three classes of society
◊ Whites, Americans & French (with very different attitudes toward Black people)
◊ Free People/Person of Color (FPOC)
◊ Slaves
I need “polite” and I need “rude.” In the ideal I would find some original sources that have such interactions, and see what these people actually called each other. I got bupkis. So, it’s fiction time, based on a whole LOT of research into the class/race structure of antebellum New Orleans.
The feedback is from a “slave south” point of view. No Black woman would ever say those things to a white man, and no white man would ever be polite to a Black woman. This is absolutely true.
But an FPOC is not a slave. It is a distinct social class, skillful artisans, shopkeepers, educated. White people were customers, and so were FPOC. So there was a polite interaction among them. The French have lived this way for decades, not a problem.
However, New Orleans is filling up with Americans, many from the south. For them, the idea of FPOC is strange, and dangerous. Black people with guns??? They see a brown person, and they think slave, and would be very likely to use slave terminology. Whereas the local French population sees the FPOC as a not-quite-one-of-us class of people.
In this context I want to accomplish a few things: be easy on the reader; be plausible; be consistent. Perhaps most importantly, the terms of address used should help you understand that this is a hierarchical class/racist system and reflect the inbred attitudes of the speakers. So in some cases we are polite; in some cases we are dismissive; in some cases we are downright nasty. And it works in both/all directions.
YIKES! So I decided…
White > white
Americans will use English words (sir, mister, madam) when talking to whites. If they are being considerate when talking to a French person, they might use French words (monsieur, madame). The French will use French words (monsieur, madame).
White > FPOC
The French will use polite words, either French or Kouri-Vini (e.g. michié for monsieur). The Americans, the language depends upon their personal character. They’ll use Kouri-Vini if they’re being polite, slave terminology for the assholes. There are a couple of “generic” terms that show up here that should prove useful.
FPOC > White
In almost all cases, polite or deferential, which is fact required by law. In the scene in question I’m likely to change her insults into an African language the white guy doesn’t understand. Because, a FPOC would be careful about pissing off the white people.
Anyone > Slaves
At best dismissive (boy, girl); at worst, denigrating and destructive (buck, wench). This is also true of FPOC, many of whom owned slaves and considered themselves “better than.”
Generic Words
Along the way, I found a new word in Kouri-Vini: “boug.” Fundamentally, “dude,” a non-specific tag for anyone. There is no feminine equivalent. I may use “bèl” for that, which means “girl” or “girlfriend.” Either one is appropriately “correct” but dismissive. I particularly like that “boug” is likely to be read as “bug,” which conveys the sense of “you ain’t nobody.” So I need to introduce this word, make sure it’s obvious to the reader what it means, and then use it repeatedly.
I may use “cousin” as a generic form of address for an American talking to a FPOC. “So let me tell you, Cousin, what we’re going to do.” In Kouri-Vini and in the story, kouzin/kouzinn. For an American in 1820 New Orleans, tempering the racist hatred to accommodate a FPOC might take such a form. Perhaps not. They may use racist terminology, because from the perspective of the American south, the entire idea of FPOC is weird and unnatural.
Nuance. So here I am, two days later… going back through the 50K words or so already written, to tweak all this for consistency. God I hate writers. Sheesh! Like this should be good or something. 🙂
