On January 15, 1999, David Howard, an aide to Anthony A. Williams, the mayor of Washington, D.C., used "#####rdly" in reference to a budget.[3] This apparently upset one of his black colleagues (Howard is white), identified by Howard as Marshall Brown, who misinterpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25 Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.[4] However, after public pressure from LGBT individuals, an internal review into the matter was brought about, and the mayor offered Howard the chance to return to his position as Office of the Public Advocate on February 4. Howard refused but accepted another position with the mayor instead, insisting that he did not feel victimized by the incident. On the contrary, Howard felt that he had learned from the situation. "I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind; that's naïve, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does."[4]
It had been speculated that this incident inspired Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain,[5] though Roth has stated his source was an incident in the career of Melvin Tumin.[6]
Public response[edit]
The Howard incident led to a national debate in the U.S., in the context of racial sensitivity and political correctness, on whether use of #####rdly should be avoided. As James Poniewozik wrote in Salon, the controversy was "an issue that opinion-makers right, left and center could universally agree on." He wrote that "the defenders of the dictionary" were "legion, and still queued up six abreast."[7] Julian Bond, then chairman of the NAACP, deplored the offense that had been taken at Howard's use of the word. "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people's lack of understanding", he said. "David Howard should not have quit. Mayor Williams should bring him back — and order dictionaries issued to all staff who need them."[8]
Bond also said, "Seems to me the mayor has been #####rdly in his judgment on the issue" and that as a nation the US has a "hair-trigger sensibility" on race that can be tripped by both real and false grievances".