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The Census Bureau announced Monday that it would drop the word "Negro" from its forms, after some described it as offensive. According to the Associated Press, the term will be replaced next year by black or African-American. From the AP:

"The change will take effect next year when the Census Bureau distributes its annual American Community Survey to more than 3.5 million U.S. households, Nicholas Jones, chief of the bureau's racial statistics branch, said in an interview."

AP reports that the term was first used in the 1900 Census, and back in 2010, a bureau public information officer told us that the word had been on Census forms since about 1950.

But the bureau and the Census Director's Blog decided to tackle the issue after many African-American people complained about it during the 2010 Census.

"The category 'Black, African Am., or Negro' was used in Census 2000, based on research in the late 1990s that showed there was an older cohort of African-Americans who self-identified as 'Negro.' Surprisingly, about 56,000 persons took the time to write in under the 'some other race' category the word 'Negro.' Above half of them were less than 45 years of age in 2000.

"The Census Bureau didn't do any research on the respondent reaction to the word 'Negro' in the 2000s, but did do tests that showed answers to the ethnicity and race questions tended to change depending on the order of the questions. I think some research on the sensitivity of answers to the presence of 'Negro' should have been done last decade, but I am unaware of what limitations there were on the research program then."

We asked readers what they thought about it at the time, and it was tight. But about 53 percent of those who answered our question seemed to find it OK.

However, Census Bureau research and public feedback turned up different results, so moving forward "Negro" will not be an option.

Question 9 on the first page of the 2010 Census form. After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in its surveys. Instead of the term, which was popularized during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use "black" or "African-American."

Question 9 on the first page of the 2010 Census form. After more than a century, the Census Bureau is dropping use of the word "Negro" to describe black Americans in its surveys. Instead of the term, which was popularized during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, census forms will use "black" or "African-American."

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No More 'Negro' For Census Bureau Forms And Surveys

By Dahvi Shira

02/25/2013 at 08:00 AM EST

The Silver Linings Playbook star, 22, took a little fall on her way up to accept her statuette.

"Look at my dress!" she told reporters backstage after the show, of her Christian Dior Couture gown. "I tried to walk upstairs in this dress. That's what happened. I think I stepped on the fabric and they waxed the stairs."

There wasn't too much going through her head at the time of the tumble except "a bad word that starts with 'F'," she said with a laugh.

But it was more than her trip that put a strain on her day.

"The process today was so stressful," she said. "I felt like Steve Martin in Father of the Bride, watching my house being torn apart. And my whole family was getting ready. It was chaotic. I didn't eat today because I was so stressed. And then I was starving on the way over and that sucked."

But it sounds like matters were fixed for the smiling starlet, who jokingly apologized for taking a shot right before she chatted with press.

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Jennifer Lawrence: The 'F' Word Was All I Could Think When I Fell at the Oscars

February 21, 2013 17:25

Film tells the life story of a vinyl record

Photo: Press

The Gaslight Anthem this week (Tuesday, February 19) attended the premiere of Every Word Handwritten at the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan.

Co-written by the band's drummer Benny Horowitz and Kevin Slack, who also directed the 15-minute short, the film details the narrative of a piece of vinyl from its conception to its eventual fate as a bruised and battered offering in a used record stores bargain bin, and impact that it has on the people, spanning generations, whose lives it becomes a part of.

Talking exclusively to NME.COM, Horowitz, who also produced the film, said: "Its not just about the sanctity of a record album, although I do believe in that. But its not as much that as I just see shit all the time that is somebody elses old shit that meant everything to them. It blows my mind when I see those old black and white pictures for 50 cents at vintage stores, because that shoebox was somebodys life this was like three generations of a family. People looked at these pictures, people stared at these pictures and felt something and somebody knows who all these fucking people are, and now theyre 50 cents in a bin. The record was a mechanism for that those inanimate objects in your life that play such a big role to you and you think nobody else, but if they live on, then they do sometimes affect somebody else like that."

After the screening, Horowitz who conceived of the idea for the film during the making of the video for The Gaslight Anthem's 'Handwritten', the title track of the bands fourth album and Slack took questions from the packed auditorium of fans. Present at both were Gaslight Anthem bassist Alex Levine and guitarist Alex Rosamilia the latter, with fellow musician Wes Kleinknecht, composed the films score. While an impending heavy schedule of touring for the band means projects like this might not be a regular occurrence, for Horowitz it nevertheless marks the completion of a long-running creative urge.

"Ive always written," he says, "but Ive never written anything organised, because I dont know how. But Ive always written things that are just like journal entries, and all those years of doing it made me think I could do it. One of the awesome things about being in the situation Im in is that my job gives me the liberty to pursue these interests, and because of it, there are actually people who are interested. I feel really lucky to have that. Im an opinionated person and a loudmouth sometimes but Im a drummer. And that means you dont have your own voice. But theres shit I want to say, and maybe this is the way I can get to say it."

The world's greatest music magazine is now available as a digital edition! For exclusive content you won't find on NME.COM, download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

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The Gaslight Anthem premiere 'Every Word Handwritten' movie in New York

I was one of the worst offenders.

I fell back on it constantly. I abused it, misused it and frankly, treated it poorly. I just got lazy.

Finally I gave it up for Lent, and because I have done so, I hope this column will be, ah, ah, ah, compelling. Or at least curious.

What the heck am I talking about? Well, it's the word we've all come to love. And I've come to hate.

The word interesting.

Yep. I suspect -- if we thought about it a bit -- we'd all agree. The word interesting is most often used as a fallback position, when we either don't want to take a real position or are just a little too lazy to say what we really mean.

And because we have so abused this word, it has really become white bread, warm milk, noncommittal. Dare I say, darn near useless.

And I am guilty.

Let's say, for example, you have been following The Columbian's unscientific Web poll this week on which city councilor best represents your views. And the winner? "I have no idea who most of these people are."

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Press Talk: A curious column, for sure!

One Missouri Western State University student wants to put an end to the N-word.

Jacqueline Love wrote a paper for her oral communications class about the origin and meaning of the N-word. On Saturday, she presented her research at Rolling Hills Library, as part of a series on Black History Month.

We, as a human race, need to put a stop to the N-word, Ms. Love said.

Part of her paper focused on the etymology of the word. It was first used in 1574 to denigrate black slaves, and it shares a Latin root with the word necrosis. Many things need to be done, she said, before American culture stops using the word.

I would tell them to please get your history on the word, she said. Why we are saying it. Do you realize how much of a devastating impact it is having?

Our culture has glorified the use of the word, Ms. Love said, and some people now use it in endearing terms. But that needs to stop as well, because its not the original context of the word.

Even the smaller kids nowadays, you see them around the street and you hear them say the word, she said. What are we doing to correct that to stop them from saying it?

The presentation was mainly attended by blacks, with a few whites in attendance. Ramadhan Washington read a passage from the book African Holistic Health by Laila O. Afrika. In it, the author described how words and their original meaning can show the lifeblood of a culture.

Mr. Washington believes that this idea applies to the N-word.

Those who use the word should know the etymology of the word to put it into perspective, he said.

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Stop using the N-word, Western student urges