The n-word and its use

[Frank]

When it comes to "obscuring potential solutions", as I claimed, I can speak with more confidence if I referenced my first post about the difference between "hearing impaired"/"disabled" and "differently abled". The term "differently abled" implies something very different from "disabled", and it covers up and obscures original meaning. I could talk about this specific issue for hours. It is logical that the same type of obscuring PC style language could be applied to ethnic slurs as well.

Use any word when/however you see fit; you seem to be "down" like that.  It will not matter about its disgusting, vile history or how it sickens others just to see it in print, let alone hear it.  Others will eventually evolve to your state of enlightenment.

It's unfortunate that just because I disagree with you, you seem to be fine to make me out to seem like an arrogant prick who believes he's enlightened versus other people. Hint: I'm not. I just disagree with you. You don't see me making assumptions about YOU, so let's keep this about the arguments involved and not the characters involved.

I can only fathom referencing such slurs prefaced with: "Yes, ignorant, hateful people used *slur* to describe and oppress  *ethnic group* back in the day, but fortunately, we are past using such hurtful, divisive language today."

I gave the "Jap" example because I have personal experience with it. I study modern Japanese history, and that inevitably includes modern war history and racism on all fronts. I've had conversations with scholars of all races about the issue and we all can use "Jap" in those conversations understanding the situation we're in. Sure, situations like this aren't common, but they exist, and they should abide by their own rules.

Aside from that, IMO there is *no* place in comedy, conversation, entertainment or amongst "friends" where it is appropriate.  At least not in my presence or the presence of anyone I love.

Fine. But that shouldn't and won't stop people who disagree with you. Your opinions do not get to limit what others can say, especially when they're not around you. Just like my opinions on religion don't and shouldn't influence how people practice it in their lives.

This discussion is starting to go in circles, and with each post of yours you're starting to insinuate things about me more and more that I don't appreciate. Please, stop. I'm not particularly inclined to keep responding if that's going to keep happening.

[sueño]

I'm sorry for any insinuations.  I only know of you what I read.  If I was perceiving a more accepting attitude towards the use of ethnic slurs on your part than you intended, I truly apologize.  I've just never seen a good justification for calling people outside their names and I don't think I ever will. 

All we can really do is be kind to others. 

[Frank]

All we can really do is be kind to others. 

'Tis all good!

[GuineaPig]

I should point out that "nigger" is definitely not the only word with offensive/insulting origins that is used among friends.

[hefdaddy42]

Bitch please.

[GuineaPig]

Shut up, ya cunt.

[KevShmev]

https://www.nydailynews.com/douglas-threatens-slurs-espn-cohost-article-1.1419698

[Progmetty]

I resent any use of n-word not unless followed by the word "what".

[eric42434224]

I resent any use of n-word not unless followed by the word "what".

1.21 nigga-whats?
Great Scott!

[sueño]

I should point out that "nigger" is definitely not the only word with offensive/insulting origins that is used among friends.

So far in this thread, I haven't seen any other ethnic slur used in such a way.  Nor do I hear of folks commenting about other groups desiring to use ethnic slurs peculiar to their own group.

I think the word is vile no matter who uses it for whatever reason.  But there is rarely any uproar about other groups.  Unless...they have grown beyond referring to themselves in derogatory ways?   

I don't know.  I don't have friends that use offensive/insulting words, in or outside my ethnic group.

[kirksnosehair]

I should point out that "nigger" is definitely not the only word with offensive/insulting origins that is used among friends.

So far in this thread, I haven't seen any other ethnic slur used in such a way.  Nor do I hear of folks commenting about other groups desiring to use ethnic slurs peculiar to their own group.

I think the word is vile no matter who uses it for whatever reason.  But there is rarely any uproar about other groups.  Unless...they have grown beyond referring to themselves in derogatory ways?   

I don't know.  I don't have friends that use offensive/insulting words, in or outside my ethnic group.

I am of mixed heritage - mother Cape Verdian (a weird ethnic mixture of black and Portuguese) and my biological father Italian.


My best friend is 100% Italian


Now, I grew up in a place called New Bedford, which is well-known in New England as a hub of Portuguese immigrants.  Indeed, my mother was not born in the US, nor was my biological father.


Two of the most commonly used racial slurs to describe the Portuguese in New Bedford were/are "Greenhorn" or "Portagee" (pronounced "Por-tah-gee" with a hard "g" as in "green")


Two of the most commonly used racial slurs to describe the Italian are "Dago" and "Wop"


If you heard my best friend (who happens to be my brother-in-law since we're married to sisters) and me going back and forth when we are working on some projects together, and you didn't know us, you might think we hate each other.


Me: Hand me that screwdriver you fucking dago grease-ball.
Him: Shut the fuck up ya gawdamned greenhorn, can'tcha see I'm doin' sumptin?
Me: Come on you fucking wop immigrant nut sack, hurry up!
Him: Bite me you damned portagee, go eat some fava beans!


We almost never do this unless we have an unsuspecting audience.  It's always comical to watch the reactions.   




All I'm saying is, it may not be the most common thing in the world, but there ARE people who use "racial slurs" in everyday language and they often do it IN SPITE OF the fact that it makes some people uncomfortable.  Hell, my brother-in-law and I do it precisely because of the affect it has on some folks. 


Words are nothing more than letters arranged in a certain order that articulate sounds that we've assigned a meaning to.  They have precisely the amount of power that we allow them to have.  No more or no less.  Yes, there are certain times and places where it may be inappropriate and/or insensitive to use certain words, but I think at some point it becomes a little bit too much to give a single word so much power that its mere utterance triggers avalanches of unadulterated horror and outrage.

[sueño]

Interesting, truly.

Ah well.  Enjoy! 

[slycordinator]

I, for one, would feel sad if the entire word were spelled out in the title.

It's a disgusting racial slur and just because it doesn't hurt you doesn't mean it doesn't hurt others.

So you'd feel less sad seeing a word that literally means the exact same thing?

[KevShmev]

And the controversy is back, thanks to Bill Maher jokingly referring to himself as a "house n-word" the other night on HBO.  Before it was, "Well, blacks have taken ownership of it and turned it into a positive, but whites still can't say it (as they shouldn't)," but now some are saying, "Well, Maher said it and he is white, but he is a comedian and a liberal, so it's okay."

Can't we all agree that no one should be saying it, at this point?  Abolish that terrible word from everyone's vocabulary and eliminate the confusion. 

[El Barto]

And the controversy is back, thanks to Bill Maher jokingly referring to himself as a "house n-word" the other night on HBO.  Before it was, "Well, blacks have taken ownership of it and turned it into a positive, but whites still can't say it (as they shouldn't)," but now some are saying, "Well, Maher said it and he is white, but he is a comedian and a liberal, so it's okay."

Can't we all agree that no one should be saying it, at this point?  Abolish that terrible word from everyone's vocabulary and eliminate the confusion. 

I don't agree. Banning words just continues to dumb us all down by removing context from discourse. That's the last thing we fucking need.

[XeRocks81]

My take is to just stay out of it.  Part of the black community has re-claimed the word and I think that's legit but like any group they are not just a big monolithic block so there's disagreements on that subject. 


Oh and ugh,  Bill Maher.  I wish he would just pull a Deniis Miller already and become a  conservative host on a different platform,  it's obviously where this is headed.   

[pogoowner]

My take is to just stay out of it.  Part of the black community has re-claimed the word and I think that's legit but like any group they are not just a big monolithic block so there's disagreements on that subject. 


Oh and ugh,  Bill Maher.  I wish he would just pull a Deniis Miller already and become a  conservative host on a different platform,  it's obviously where this is headed.   

I kind of agree on Maher. He's a huge pothead, and he hates religion, so he's always lumped in with liberals and progressives, but other than those issues, he largely doesn't fit the bill.

[antigoon]

My take is to just stay out of it.  Part of the black community has re-claimed the word and I think that's legit but like any group they are not just a big monolithic block so there's disagreements on that subject. 


Oh and ugh,  Bill Maher.  I wish he would just pull a Deniis Miller already and become a  conservative host on a different platform,  it's obviously where this is headed.   

agree on all of this.

[KevShmev]

I kind of agree on Maher. He's a huge pothead, and he hates religion, so he's always lumped in with liberals and progressives, but other than those issues, he largely doesn't fit the bill.

Someone has to fit a specific definition to be a liberal or progressive? 

I don't watch him a lot, but his views are pretty liberal, from where I sit.

  Banning words just continues to dumb us all down by removing context from discourse. That's the last thing we fucking need.

In most cases, I would agree, but with this word, there is too much gray area now.

[El Barto]

In most cases, I would agree, but with this word, there is too much gray area now.

Gray area? If you utter the word and you're anything but black you're a racist and should be banished from society. By eliminating context from the equation we've removed every bit of gray, and it's now wholly binary.

[Cool Chris]

Echoing what I think Kev was trying to get at, why do we need someone to be a "liberal" or a "conservative" commentator? Isn't that part of our overall issue, people only listening to those hosts/journalists who parrot their beliefs?

And no, words shouldn't be "banned" but if you have an IQ over 40 you should realize that depending on your race/gender/whatever, some words should just not be in your lexicon, and using them to be witty, funny, or to make a point is never going to work in your favor.

[KevShmev]

In most cases, I would agree, but with this word, there is too much gray area now.

Gray area? If you utter the word and you're anything but black you're a racist and should be banished from society. By eliminating context from the equation we've removed every bit of gray, and it's now wholly binary.

But that goes back to my earlier point about some who are defending Maher's use of it, saying it okay because he is a liberal, as well as a comedian.  Do I think Maher is a racist?  Probably not.  Do I think he was trying to make a joke?  Yes, and a bad one

Echoing what I think Kev was trying to get at, why do we need someone to be a "liberal" or a "conservative" commentator? Isn't that part of our overall issue, people only listening to those hosts/journalists who parrot their beliefs?

Excellent point.

[Stadler]

Far more complicated than just "a word".   I despise Bill Maher on every level, but in terms of general use of a word, he didn't actually say anything racist (kind of just the opposite).   Even if you do think it "racist", el Barto is right; driving it underground doesn't eliminate it, it just allows it to fester without any counter argument.  He shouldn't have said it because it just exposes what a hypocritical attention whore he really is.  He's the first one to call bullshit on people that he doesn't agree with, then claim "who, me?" when his bullshit is called on. 

[Chino]

I'm wondering if HBO edited this episode for streaming. I watched it Saturday morning before hearing of this news, and I didn't even notice him say this in the interview. It was possible I was completely zoned out when he said it because I feel like I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise. I watched the clip afterward and honestly don't get what the big deal is. Maher has said many things significantly more offensive than than the word "nigger" and got a studio full of laughs for doing so. I don't know. Seems like a lot of misplaced anger to me. Given the context it was used in, and the fact that he has regular civil dialogue with blacks on his show, I don't understand how this can be considered racist.

[cramx3]

My take is to just stay out of it.  Part of the black community has re-claimed the word and I think that's legit but like any group they are not just a big monolithic block so there's disagreements on that subject. 


Oh and ugh,  Bill Maher.  I wish he would just pull a Deniis Miller already and become a  conservative host on a different platform,  it's obviously where this is headed.   

I kind of agree on Maher. He's a huge pothead, and he hates religion, so he's always lumped in with liberals and progressives, but other than those issues, he largely doesn't fit the bill.

I think this is why I *kind of* like him.  I think he's an asshole that stirs the pot too much, but in terms of views, I see him actually more in the middle which aligns moreso with myself and therefore when he's shitting on both democrats and republicans, I can find him enjoyable.  however, he's an annoying ass and is hard to watch so there's that.  He also used some homosexual slang recently with Milo.  It's all for ratings (just like him smoking pot on live TV).  It's a show and it's hard to take him seriously when he acts like this.

[Stadler]

I'm wondering if HBO edited this episode for streaming. I watched it Saturday morning before hearing of this news, and I didn't even notice him say this in the interview. It was possible I was completely zoned out when he said it because I feel like I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise. I watched the clip afterward and honestly don't get what the big deal is. Maher has said many things significantly more offensive than than the word "nigger" and got a studio full of laughs for doing so. I don't know. Seems like a lot of misplaced anger to me. Given the context it was used in, and the fact that he has regular civil dialogue with blacks on his show, I don't understand how this can be considered racist.

They did edit subsequent sources of the show; streams, replays, etc. 

[Cool Chris]

They did edit subsequent sources of the show; streams, replays, etc. 

Oh good, this will make it as if it never happened, and no feelings will get hurt.

[jingle.boy]

I just watched a segment on CNN (Lemon, whom I detest along with most of his regular "guests") of them discussing it, and man I wish I had that 5 minutes of my life back.  My impression .... it was a bad and tasteless joke.  Maher's guest referenced "in the fields", and Maher himself tried to quip a witty remark.  "the fields" can certainly represent an image of slavery, so that's the path he took to make a quick comeback.  The media is what is giving this attention and legs - just as they did Michael Richards' tirade oh those many years ago (jeez, it's been 10+ years for that).

It references a terrible time in America's history, but I struggle to see how that uttering the word is the most reprehensible thing about that history.  Considering the recent events surrounding the confederate monuments coming down (or not coming down), this scenario is what the media wants to shine a flashlight on as being an absolutely detestable action?

And it's not "the word" that is the issue.  Hell, 12 Years A Slave won the best f'n picture, and there were plenty of uses of the word there.  What makes their use of it earn the highest film-making honor, where Bill's use of it (granted, poorly), worthy of negative attention?  It seems to me that the who/when/why of its use is the issue that people want to pick apart.

[Stadler]

I just watched a segment on CNN (Lemon, whom I detest along with most of his regular "guests") of them discussing it, and man I wish I had that 5 minutes of my life back.  My impression .... it was a bad and tasteless joke.  Maher's guest referenced "in the fields", and Maher himself tried to quip a witty remark.  "the fields" can certainly represent an image of slavery, so that's the path he took to make a quick comeback.  The media is what is giving this attention and legs - just as they did Michael Richards' tirade oh those many years ago (jeez, it's been 10+ years for that).

It references a terrible time in America's history, but I struggle to see how that uttering the word is the most reprehensible thing about that history.  Considering the recent events surrounding the confederate monuments coming down (or not coming down), this scenario is what the media wants to shine a flashlight on as being an absolutely detestable action?

And it's not "the word" that is the issue.  Hell, 12 Years A Slave won the best f'n picture, and there were plenty of uses of the word there.  What makes their use of it earn the highest film-making honor, where Bill's use of it (granted, poorly), worthy of negative attention?  It seems to me that the who/when/why of its use is the issue that people want to pick apart.

Here's the thing, though:   you could argue (I'm not sure I feel this way, I go back and forth, but you could argue this) that Colbert's "cockholster" comment was predicated on the idea that it is disparaging to be a man sucking a cock.  (The alternative view is that it is a subservient position regardless of gender or sexual preference, which is how I think I view it, though again, I go back and forth).   Thus, homophobic.    But Maher's comment wasn't meant to demean the black experience, it wasn't meant to minimize it or ridicule it.  It wasn't predicated on the idea that a black man (or woman) IS inferior.   It was meant - tastelessly, to be sure - to reference that the Republican (yes, that's important, at least to Maher) was treating him subhuman, and that was perhaps the best example of "subhuman treatment" he could come up with.   Having said that, he'd be the first to come back with some snarky, pseudo-intellectual put down if a conservative made reference to the black experience, and thus he's a hypocrite to the extreme in my opinion. 


I can't fucking believe I am defending Bill Maher.  I can't stand that guy and otherwise consider him to be an arrogant, self-centered, egotistical, not-as-smart-as-he-thinks-he-is, liberal elitist.   

[jingle.boy]

Is there anyone you wouldn't defend?   

[Stadler]

Is there anyone you wouldn't defend?   

Not if they deserve it.  What kind of question is that?  EVERYONE deserves due process and fair treatment under the law.    That's the very premise of our Constitution.   None of this is - or should be - personal.

(You shouldn't be at all surprised that my favorite of all the Founding Fathers is John Adams.  Google "John Adams Boston Massacre Trial"). 

[Chino]

Is there anyone you wouldn't defend?   

Not if they deserve it.  What kind of question is that?  EVERYONE deserves due process and fair treatment under the law.    That's the very premise of our Constitution.   None of this is - or should be - personal.

(You shouldn't be at all surprised that my favorite of all the Founding Fathers is John Adams.  Google "John Adams Boston Massacre Trial").

Have you ever seen the John Adam's mini series on HBO? I absolutely love that scene. One of the best of the series no doubt.

[Stadler]

Is there anyone you wouldn't defend?   

Not if they deserve it.  What kind of question is that?  EVERYONE deserves due process and fair treatment under the law.    That's the very premise of our Constitution.   None of this is - or should be - personal.

(You shouldn't be at all surprised that my favorite of all the Founding Fathers is John Adams.  Google "John Adams Boston Massacre Trial").

Have you ever seen the John Adam's mini series on HBO? I absolutely love that scene. One of the best of the series no doubt.

LOVE that series. I have it on DVD.  My daughter was studying that time period about a year ago, and we did a little mini-screening of it.  I'd cook dinner and we'd watch an episode or two, until it was done.  Good times.   (Plus Paul Giamatti is just amazing). 

[kaos2900]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/kendrick-lamar-interrupts-white-fan-after-she-raps-the-n-word-onstage/ar-AAxB7XU?li=BBnb7Kz

Just read this article. In a nut shell Kendrick Lamar invited a white girl on stage to rap/sing along to his song and she did. The issue is that she said the N word. I guess I don't understand this. She sang the song word for word and she is obviously a fan of his since she was at his concert and and knew the words. She was not being racist by any means. He seemed nice enough and let her "try" again, but the whole story just seems odd to me.

[Cool Chris]

*Gets mad at a girl for using the n-word in a song he wrote.

*Follows it with a song called "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe."