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Stop using the n-word.

I know there's a whole family of tired arguments regarding this, such as the ol' "If they use it why can't I", 'It only has the power you give it' and the "if we ban this word let's ban 'cracker/*****/****/flip',etc" and others. That's not my point. While I personally espouse a ban on most racial terms (except on this forum, gringos), I don't think some black people will stop using it, the same way certain women insist on calling themselves ********

What worries me is the people who seem to have come out of the woodwork- Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, etc., who can't seem to give up usage of the word or seem to think it has no power. I've come accross this often-people who harbor inherent prejudice (we all do to some point, it's in the culture), inherently dismissive of a shared history of humiliation, of what it is to be percieved as a caricature before you even open your mouth. They tell jokes with the n-word in them, refer to their friends as such, the whole time perpetuating a desensitization that to some, further empowers the hurt of it, and to others, robs it of hurt alltogether.

So, which one are you? Have you ever used it? Derogatively? Affectionately? Why?
If you're a ******* and just wanna be black so bad it hurts, please excuse yourself from this conversation.

Edited, Nov 28th 2006 10:20am by Atomicflea

Words aren't hurtful. It's the ideas behind the words. Slippery slope, book burning, yadda yadda.

It's preposterous that someone saying "nigger" regardless of context is somehow more hurtful than someone saying "people of African descent" in a negative one.

Free speech has to be just that. Short of actively inciting violence, there shouldn't even be the vaguest of considerations of curbing speech. Free exchange of ideas and expression encourages the laying bare of predujidce. All attempting to modify or codify speech does is make it easier for people to pretend such prejudices doesn't exist. For example, personally, I think people with Southern accents sound like inbred slack jawed yokels, but that doesn't mean I'd try to encourage them to learn to speak without accent. I much prefer getting that quick heads up that I can ignore everything they say.

See, I tend to think you don't care simply because you're already an offensive ***. It must be like lobbing spit into the Nile.
Edit because balloons are non-biodegradable.

Edited, Nov 28th 2006 10:37am by Atomicflea

See, I tend to think you don't care simply because you're already an offensive ***.

Well there is that. We all know Peruvians in the US are secretly Shining Path sleeper agents though, so I just assume everything you post is meant to trick me and everyone else into replacing "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance with "El Marxismo-Leninismo abrira el sendero luminoso hacia la revolucion". Which actually would be ok with me, but I refuse be a bourgeois puppet for your Machiavellian manipulations!

Like I'd tell you.

Anything that gets Mind of Mencia off the air is fine with me.

This needs to be said: If a race desperately wants to shed itself of the stereotype of being shiftless, criminal, and lazy, then some introspection is neccesary when the only images our youth is fed are ones where blacks are pimps, gangbangers, whores, and thugs. Not only does it feed into the stereotype by those who are inclined to believe those images, it steers impressionable young people to emulate them in a misguided attempt to have a contemporary look.

You can try to pass the blame onto the media giants that package this and sell it to people-- and make no mistake, they have culpability in this --but that only serves to once again allow individuals to shirk their personal responsibility for their own choices and actions. It does nothing to prevent the perpetrators of this criminal lifestyle from cashing in on what amounts as a national disgrace.

That every other race copies this criminal look only reinforces the bad choices and behavior that perpetuates the use of words like "n1gger."

Totem

Apparently you've never seen a little something called "The Cosby Show".

It's already eroded the language.

I'm sure some people think so, yourself included.

Totem making sense. Will Caesars never wonder.

You know, my first instinct was to protest this notion out-of-hand, then I remembered an incident from when I was about 13.

The setting: my family (meaning the aunt and uncle who raised me and my little brother, their two children, and our grandmother) are visiting L.A. on Spring Break. We're staying with--and being shuttled around/tour guided by--another aunt and her husband.

One day we went to the San Diego zoo and on the way back, got caught in a traffic jam and had people in uniform look in at us through our car windows, which the Californian-aunt called a "beaner check." The next day, I was talking about to incident to my other aunt (the one who was raising me) and used that phrase, and she got very angry with me and eventually informed that the term was a racial slur.

Now, had I not had that conversation, it's possible that I could have gone years, even decades, using the word "beaner" without understanding its racial implications. Would that mean I was racist against Latinos? No, it wouldn't. It would simply mean I was using a word whose connotations I didn't understand.

So while I *somewhat* agree with your point, Kelvy, I will add this: intent counts. I don't believe for a minute that your grandfather didn't KNOW that the word he used in those nursey rhymes had a negative implications. The children who parroted those terms didn't, but he did. He knew, and he chose to use the word anyway. While that doesn't make him completely racist, it DOES make him racially--I don't know. Biased? Insensitive, if that's not too emo a word? He might not have been donning a pillow-case himself, but he certainly wasn't protesting those who were, or supporting those the pillow-case dudes victimized. Not with that kind of DELIBERATE "ignorance."

And I think if you're not making an effort to stamp out willful racism, if you just assume a "I'm not a racist, but gee, isn't that word funny in this rhyme" sort of attitude, then you are at the very least fostering racism, allowing it to thrive. It's a case of complicity by inaction.

I'm not a huge fan of Bill Maher, but I like this quote: "Don't become so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance."

And I always assumed they said those things because they knew something about my (future) skills in the bedroom, and here I thought I was famous before my time.