An interesting choice by the television censors

[Tesserat]

I find it strangely surreal when I read, hear, (or write) "The N word". People who don't have a problem writing "◊◊◊◊, won't write "n**ger". The word has enormous power, to the point where if the word "niggardly" is taught in schools, it raises an enormous outcry.


I agree with Geoff Nunberg:

Not that anyone should ever mention the word for any reason without a sense of its considerable power, but it doesn't deserve the awe that a taboo implies. Let it lie in the sun to rot.


(and thanks to Darwin'sGoat for the quote)

 

[epepke]

Just curious--were either of these examples in the Comedy central special?

I didn't see it, so I don't know, but I doubt it. But it is two examples of white people using the N-word to appropriate effect.

 

[epepke]

Who has made it clear? That decision hasn't been made. Some people think no one should say it, some people think that only black people should be allowed to say it, some people think everyone should say it.

The problem is the stereotype. Dancing around the political correctness of words isn't solving that problem and is in essence disempowering the people the dancing is trying to protect.

True enough.

Also, the idea that all African-Americans share that culture or experience is a particularly insidious kind of liberal white boy racist stereotype. It's only the subtlest of perceptual shifts from that to saying "they all shuffle; they're just that way."

 

[kittynh]

Ok someone was kicked off an MTV sort of find the band thing because he used the cracker word (he's black) in a rap.

Anyway, I was watching Animal House Vacation (with Chevy Chase). Remember when the cousin says her dad says she's the best french kisser? (the girls are on the teeter totter). Well, the switched it to "My science teacher..." OK, so the censors are weird....