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Merged Paula Deen: Use the N word, get the axe

Piggy said:
When Q-Tip sang "Tommy Hil was my ****** and others couldn't figure, me and Hilfiger moving through with vigor" that obviously wasn't a slur or an insult, it was a compliment, especially considering he wore Tommy's clothes
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Oh, come on. That's a horribly offensive use of the term. What a lazy, weak rhyme! :eek:


Seriously though, none of this seems terribly surprising. The word was used in the context of enslaving an entire group of people. After that was made illegal, it was continued to be used to refer to these people as sub-human, filthy, criminal, and so on. To me it seems to have a lot more baggage than a term like 'spic'.

And so some decided, if we are going to be called that, let's take ownership of the word. And by and large they have. Yes, it's entirely a construct, but so is all of human language and human mores. I don't know why people find it a particular headscratcher, or react to the 'irony' that one group gets to say it and one doesn't. Yesterday at work I called somebody I really like a f****** lazy bastard. If I said the same to the CEO, or him to me, huge offense would be taken. Context matters.

Back to the rap - to my ears when a song uses the word in every other line for easy rhymes - the whole thing comes of as lazy and somewhat offensive as well.
 
I think the Food Network has now replaced all of Paula Deen's shows with "Down Home with the Neelys", when I used to see them only on the weekend. It just seems kinda tacky, somehow.
 
For years, I thought I was hearing about a man named "Paul Ledeen." Hearing her voice a couple of times did not disabuse me of that notion. What a train wreck.
 
roger said:
Oh, come on. That's a horribly offensive use of the term. What a lazy, weak rhyme! :eek:


Seriously though, none of this seems terribly surprising. The word was used in the context of enslaving an entire group of people. After that was made illegal, it was continued to be used to refer to these people as sub-human, filthy, criminal, and so on. To me it seems to have a lot more baggage than a term like 'spic'.

And so some decided, if we are going to be called that, let's take ownership of the word. And by and large they have. Yes, it's entirely a construct, but so is all of human language and human mores. I don't know why people find it a particular headscratcher, or react to the 'irony' that one group gets to say it and one doesn't. Yesterday at work I called somebody I really like a f****** lazy bastard. If I said the same to the CEO, or him to me, huge offense would be taken. Context matters.

Back to the rap - to my ears when a song uses the word in every other line for easy rhymes - the whole thing comes of as lazy and somewhat offensive as well.
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You're claiming here that use among blacks is a recent re-appropriation. I seriously doubt this. Do you have any references to support this notion?
 
carlitos said:
For years, I thought I was hearing about a man named "Paul Ledeen." Hearing her voice a couple of times did not disabuse me of that notion. What a train wreck.
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Me too, me too! And I still hadn't gotten it until I read your post - even after participating in this thread.

Paul LaDeen, one of a hundred C-list celebs I whose names I only barely recognized. What a forehead smacking "Duh" moment for me.
 
Thank you for admitting that. I feel a little better. At one point, I thought that Paul might have been a NASCAR driver.
 
Piggy said:
Reality contradicts you. The word is used every single day in this country in a non-derogatory sense.
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Taken literally, I'm sure that is true. However, in your opinion, what percent of its use is non-derogatory and what percent is demeaning?
 
SezMe said:
Taken literally, I'm sure that is true. However, in your opinion, what percent of its use is non-derogatory and what percent is demeaning?
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There's no possible way I could have access to adequate information to even have an opinion on that question.

In any case, I don't see that it matters.
 
Piggy said:
You're claiming here that use among blacks is a recent re-appropriation. I seriously doubt this. Do you have any references to support this notion?
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I don't really know how to prove the non-existence of something.

However, a quick googling again and again talks about how the word came into mainstream culture via avenues such as hip hop, Jackie Brown, and similar media. This is, obviously, not a claim about word use in private, in a black family's kitchen in the 50s or whatever. But the call for reclaiming the word, in public, and the use of it, in public, is, so far as I can tell, recent. Here is an article that is representative, albeit not authoritative. And note that that article, written in 1998, spends a lot of time on the argument that the word is not okay to use, even as re-appropriation.
 
I would just like to point out that Paula Deen is not my lover. She's just a girl who claims that I am the one. But the kid is not my son.
 
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