The N-Word and Harry Potter

I agree. It's a slur. It's derogatory no matter who is using it. If you don't want anyone else using the word, then don't say it yourself repeatedly to your family and all your friends and then turn around and become offended when someone outside of your circle says the same thing. You make an excellent point.

Michele

I've got a few black friends and have slowly become at ease with the word as they use it frequently... The time when I feel the most uncomfortable though is not when I'm talking with them, but when I'm watching a movie or listening to music around one of thier friends that I don't know and the word pops up. For some reason I just expect them to react negatively, and they never do... It's just going to have to be one of those uncomfortable words that I guess I won't be using anytime in the near future...

y'know... back in the early 1960s, comedian lenny bruce suggested that everyone should be required to use whatever offensive words anyone could come up with all the time. to describe not just people of specific ethnicity, but just to describe everyone. & everything. using these words as part of everyday conversation, he figgered, would deprive them of their power. their ability to make children cry because someone else called them a "bad name."

it might not have worked... but it might have. & censoring any use of the word "nigger" (there... i said it) strikes me as being in direct violation of the principles of free speech upon which my country (& yours too, americanskis) was founded. maybe if we all used it all the time... it might lose all meaning (like "queer", say... or "jew"... or "cracker"...).

telling people they can't say a word is precisely the sort of thing that gives those words power. telling all other groups of people that they can't use a commonly-used word tears our social fabric apart. & comparing something as personal & vicious as racial epithets to harry potter... strikes me as belittling the argument as much as that hackneyed "it didn't used to refer to black people" bullsh%t i've heard from an ongoing string of secretly bigotted (& sometimes not so secretly) whiteys over the years.

I agree with what you're saying. The more forbidden words are, the more powerful they become. That's why I made the Harry Potter analogy (not a comparison). It's not belittling or dismissive to learn from an example, even a fictional one. In fact, it can be clarifying. If you haven't done it already, you might want to read the book and perhaps, understand the analogy.

Unfortunately we have meaning in everything we do in America, and Michael Richards sure found that out the hard way recently. Sure we could run around saying whatever we want, and online is a safe place to touch on these issues (Well atleast you won't get hurt, unless words hurt you from people you don't really know). I always found it interesting how so many people of different races can make fun of one another with racial slurrs, but with the black man there is hesitation. I call my German friend's Nazi's, Mexican friends wet backs, and they call me a chink right back... I guess your point is proven in a sense, because when I'm around some of my friends free speech goes...

One other thing, Why do the old people get the whole free pass on racism thing? My grandpa hates white people (he's Chinese), but because he's old it's okay!?! Aren't they supposed to set the examples or is it when you reach the point that your too weak to defend yourself you can say whatever you want?

Sorry got a little off topic there must be the herbal medicine:)

well, michael richards has apologized publicly for the incident. which means that he'll just have to live with the stigmatism of being a bigot for the rest of his life. people seem to have an inability to forget stuff like that. just ask your german friends (or mine...). any time i get into raggin' with them, out come the nazi references. my friend marvin's family sheltered jewish neighbours in their home for six years before they were discovered & arrested... & STILL i come at him with nazi cracks every time. why? because it's FUNNY!! he's got living relatives who still remember their sister's family simply disappearing one day... & it's STILL funny!

it sucks that bigotry is funny, but that's just life, i guess. it's not funny when it happens to you (or when it leads to violence), but it's still funny 'mongst friends.

& i think old people get a pass on it because when THEY were young, hating people of different races was the norm. the idea of all races, creeds, genders & sexual orientations getting along in peace & harmony is only a few decades old. before that, you stuck to yer own kind... although everyone of every group had a few friends from the other groups.

they just didn't mention their "white" or "coloured" or "women" friends in certain circles.

it'll probably happen to us youngsters, someday...

& one final thought... there was i time when i thought the single most racist statement i had ever heard was spike lee's claim that "black racism wasn't possible."

You make some really good points, Animal. At one time, people could talk freely about bigotry both to knock it down (see All in the Family) and endorse it. The open use of slurs didn't make people more or less prejudice, but it did clarify where they they stood on racial issues. Where attitudes about race did occcur, the causes didn't include social censure of language.

I'd like to comment on the spike lee remark you cited. My own quaint opinion is that anybody is capable of racism. Anyway, there was a time when racism against black people wasn't considered wrong, just a recognition of the natural order of things. That attitude was used to justify a lot of evil. Spike Lee is using the same twisted logic here. I wonder what his thoughts would be on an incident a couple of years ago in Harlem. The reverend Sharpton addressed an already-inflamed group of black residents and expressed the view that Jewish store owners, who provided goods and services to the community, were usurpers who didn't belong in Harlem. The crowd took his opinion as theirs, burned several Jewish-owned business and killed a Jewish store owner. If that wasn't black racism, what was it?

What would justify torching a store and killing its owner?

now, now... before everyone starts jumping down ken light's throat for saying that jewish store-owners deserve to have their stores torched & be beaten or killed for the way they treat their neighbours (right, mein herr?)...

in the coupla days i've been in on this xomba site, i've learned something about our mr light that folks might not recognize right off the bat. see... he comes across like an ignorant, conceited, self-indulgent blowhard... but that's just an ACT!! it's MARKETING!! like u2 on their zooropa tour, dressing up in black leather & such to (as they explained at the time) PARODY the whole rock star image. the fact that they've done it year after year since then just makes the joke funnier!!

pay no attention to what mr light says, 'cause he'll just chime in later explaining that he doesn't mean what he says. sorta defeats the purpose of a site like this, i would think, but that's me.

as for the spike lee quote... i believe he recanted on that view many years later. i've noticed a tendency amongst black activists to soften their stance on Whitey as they get older. chuck d once rapped that "elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me, you see, straight out racist, the sucker was simple & plain (motherf&%k him & john wayne, chimed in flava...)" & then a few years later he was featured on an elvis documentary talking about the positive impact elvis had on black consciousness in america since the 1950s.

as people get older... they seem either to harden their prejudices into concrete or soften them into... i dunno, some sorta marshmallowy substance?

& in canada it's different too. our primary cultural division isn't racial, it's linguistic. us anglos hate the french & they hate us. goes back hundreds of years (long before the anglos & french arrived on these shores!). but it does make prejudice a little different up here...

up here, you have to take the time to talk to someone before you can find out whether or not you hate them.

I agree with you Ken, "provoked" is a better word than "justified". As for anybody being "sweet and innocent", very few of us meet that description after our first few years of life.

Even "provoked" is a relative word. A serial killer could say he was provoked by the sight of an unsuspecting victim who just happened to meet whatever twisted criteria he used. In his mind at least, it becomes the victims fault for making him commit murder.

Somebody might resist every taunt a bully uses to provoke him into fighting and walk away, while someone else might feel taunted enough to fight.

The person being "provoked" is making a conscious decision to take action. In the example I used, those who were "provoked" were looking for any reason to become murderous thugs.

You're right, I didn't indicate any provocations from the storeowners. That's because nothing that could be construed as a provocation, at least in my opinion, was reported in any of the media. To me, provocation wouldn't include anything you might see in the range of interactions between retailers and the public. On the negative side, that would include cheating or stealing by a retailer, if that occured (and I don't know that it did).

Hypothetically, if storeowners started the violence, that might be considered provocation by some for arson and murder. I don't think it is. But nothing was reported by anybody to indicate that the violence originated from anybody but the mob. There was nothing I heard that I would consider provocation by the storeowner. If anybody heard differently, please tell us.