ABSTRACT
David Howard, a white mayoral aide in Washington, D.C., used the word in conversation with a black official, who took offense because he felt that "niggardly," which means miserly or cheap, was a racist term. Mr. Howard offered his resignation, which was accepted by Mayor Anthony Williams. Religious controversy erupted in Lincoln, Nebraska, when a diet instructor said to her class, "I think some of you are natural snackers." In Manhattan, irate Polish-Americans rallied outside the Museum of Modern Art, convincing most fair-minded onlookers that the museum's current show on Jackson Pollock was intended as a punning attempt to revive the demeaning term "Polack." The most serious of the covert slurs stirred emotions in Utica, New York. Italian-Americans rioted for three days after a local disk jockey blithely played a song containing the phrase "as each day goes by."
