March 01, 2007

New York City Council approves ban on racial slur. The non-binding measure, asks New Yorkers to voluntarily stop using the "n-word."

I didn't even know this was on the table, but it's something that is so everyday common in NYC, it almost seems pointless in a sense. When I was a little kid, if I heard this word it carried an awful weight with it. I remember the first time I heard it - I was in shock. Fast forward 30 years, and it's wholly engrained in the youth culture in the US. I hear the word used every day, amongst a plethora of ethnicities. I recall just the other day, seeing two teenage Sikhs refer to each other with the word in question. Does such a resolution have any real impact on society?

posted by sugarmilktea 17 years ago
  • Thank God the BBC actually prints the word, "nigger." "Nigger" was always acceptable to use when talking about the word in the media. It was not until the OJ trial that I first heard anyone even say the phrase "the N-word." I couldn't believe my ears when Dan Rather, etc. started saying "the N-word" in their broadcasts. Did everyone just suddenly become 13 or something? And here we are, thirteen years later, and we still can't say "nigger" when discussing the word and its usage. Words only have as much power as we allow them to have. American society made a choice in 1994 to elevate this word to some sort of mystic forbidden voodoo status. Which in turn, of course, has only made the word that much more powerful to use and popular in American black culture. And this widens the racial divide in our society by making it socially acceptable -- cool in some circles -- to say a word that the rest of society is completely afraid of. If the word is so evil, and if certain people say it with great frequency, then those people must be bad people.
  • Dumb Nigger who passed this law should have his bitches taken away from him! ...for America's so-called hip-hop generation using the word among themselves is about self-empowerment. No wonder they want it banned.
  • My artist friend Robin Deacon has some interesting things to say about this. then again...
  • Paging Doris ... Certain words (faggot, bitch, cunt, nigger) will always pack a nasty punch, despite efforts to redefine them and inject them with positive qualities. The insistence that they can be "owned" by the groups they were once used to deride reflects a certain callousness in our culture, IMO. Even when said between friends, there's always that element of cruelty behind it. Maybe this measure will make folks think twice before using the word with such gleeful abandon.
  • "Robin is co-operative and accepts authority easily." Oh, man. If a kid of mine came home with that on his report card, he'd get a good, long talking to. One which would no doubt bite me in the ass.
  • And in other (expletive) news: Charges dropped against student who cursed at airport; claimed free speech rights. 'When deputies asked Venable to quiet down because children were nearby, she allegedly responded: "Is it against the (expletive) law to say (expletive)?"'
  • I really see no sense in legislating against particular speech-acts. I've been quite a militant anti-racist and anti-fascist in my time and I wasn't even that keen on adding to sentence tariffs because of 'hate crime' aspects. Racism is better fought in the culture by we who participate in it. I worry that most official attempts to intervene are ham-fisted and counter-productive; the Oscar Wilde thing of something becoming unacceptable when it's passé, not when it's given transgressive cachet by being singled out as wrong by the state or some other institution.
  • What a (expletive) moron.
  • oops! That was about the capt's link!
  • I know that was aimed at me Koko! Excuse me while I mount this high dudgeon
  • (expletive!)
  • Koko, I've always been curious -- are there racist gorillas?
  • Did they outlaw the word or the euphemism? These "unspeakable crimes" leave me as confused as anthropomorphic deities with ineffable names. And a legislatress in Florida is trying to forbid the use of the nasty "al*en" term except in its proper context referring to people from "out of space". She also prefers "undocumented" to "illegal": another indication women should be barefoot,pregnant and in the kitchen
  • Some alternate bowdlerizations of ni**er: ni66er (2K ghits) niggre n4r niggr 2.0 beta
  • Certain words...will always pack a nasty punch 'Tain't the words, it's the hate behind them. Sticks and stones are what break my bones, but the tools are wielded by the haters shouting the words. Education, people, not weapons.
  • It's interesting how right-wing dickheads have apparently decided on the term 'libertarian' as a euphemism for a rag-bag of insecurities and male neuroses masquerading as a political philosophy.
  • I once saw this headline in a small-town newspaper: "Aliens land in county jail after incident at Taco Bell." Hee.
  • That's funny, because whenever Bush says something dumb, I like to tell people he should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen too. I'm not fond of the "hur hur stupid female in a man's world" blather. Just, you know, so if you wonder why your comment was deleted or your account closed, that's why. Future reference, let's say.
  • DO NOT MESS WITH THE TRACIKRAKEN SHE WILL STEAL YOUR SHOES, KNOCK YOU UP AND LOCK YOU IN THE KITCHEN FOR REAL
  • legislatress Shouldn't that be "legislatrix?" When deputies asked Venable to quiet down because children were nearby At times I feel guilty for doing so, but in general I take great personal delight in swearing around children, say, in the grocery store or mall. Little fuckers need to hear it sooner or later.
  • 'Tain't the words, it's the hate behind them. Okay, if you say so. *rubs words on taint*
  • *feels enlightened now*
  • Tracy: I don't post on message boards which censor or require self-censorship since any such editing necessarily results in confusion of the writer's beliefs and the editor's. I even try to avoid having my nic associated with such boards lest it be taken as a sign I regard them as allowing free speech. Since you evidently regard my thoughts to be too "incorrect" to be tolerated without your helpful revision, I have no recourse but to resign from MoFi. Please remove my name from your membership list. Libertarian
  • Damn niggardly administrator.
  • don't let the monkey hit you in the ass on the way out :D
  • Wait -- I'm confused -- was I supposed to be self-censoring the entire time? Does pete know this? Someone should tell pete...
  • Quickest flameout ever?
  • yeah, Pez, I wasn't aware of Libertarian's existence before today and already s/he has joined Daisy_May and Berek in the wacko hall-of-fame! oh yeah!!
  • Free speech is evil. Later.
  • Getting back to our niggers, if that's possible - I realise the resolution isn't really aimed at white racists, exactly, but surely the use of the word would be illegal in New York in some inflammatory circumstances? Otherwise if some total arsehole walks into a New York bar full of black people and shouts "Niggers!"... Officer Murphy: If I could just stop you there a minute, son, are you aware that the City Council has passed a symbolic resolution asking people not to use that word? Clarkson: It's just a bit of a jape, officer. The resolution is not binding, I gather? But if one of these blokes hits me, you've got to arrest him? Officer Murphy: Er, I suppose... Clarkson: OK, listen you lot: if any of you lay a finger on me this man here with the fancy hat will arrest you. In the meantime, I'm just going to walk round among you chanting niggers, niggers, niggers... I'm sure that in a similar bar in London... Clarkson: Nig... PC Plod: Alright son, you're nicked: we're looking at a seven-year sentence for incitement to racial hatred. You were rubbish in that cartoon, too.
  • Pleg, nice one!
  • "Please remove my name from your membership list. Libertarian" hahahahahahahahahahahaha.....nigga, please!
  • Well, right, Plegmund, but in that scenario it wouldn't be using the word itself that was illegal, but the intent (I'd assume -- why else would you do something that stupid and potentially suicidal?) to cause a riot or whatever. Trying to outlaw a word in all contexts, though ... I would be really surprised if someone doesn't challenge this in court. Seems a pretty blatant violation of the First Amendment, although maybe it would get a pass because it doesn't actually carry any legal weight.
  • Paging George Carlin, George Carlin to the thread, please...
  • Up with word bans and censorship, apparently. Down with underwear.
  • Not that I agree with Libertarian's views.
  • "Niggah" is different from "Nigger" by more than two letters. Hegemony is a helluva drug. Also, cursing/swearing does no good after all. Plus them kids crazy.
  • Wait -- I'm confused -- was I supposed to be self-censoring the entire time? Does pete know this? Someone should tell pete... *blink*
  • As someone who's spent quite a lot of time lately barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen -- usually around 3 a.m. -- I can personally attest that it's not such a bad place to be. As long as there's a clean spoon, anyway.
  • All my gay friends call one another faggot. My black friends joke around with the nigga thing constantly. Many of my female friends call one anther bitch. I believe this is known as 'self-deprecating humor'. I'd look it up but that Libertarian person stepped on my foot as he was leaving and it has put me in a pissy mood.
  • Blanky brings up a good point, to which I'd like to add a corrollary [sic?] angle. I proudly claim the title of bitch to myself, but am not always happy with others using it towards me. ie the "self" in "self-deprecating" is important here. /gives Blanky some nice-nice
  • Damn it, another perfectly good sock puppet shot to hell. /embarrassed
  • I'm going to do something a little weird, and cross-comment with the thread directly below this one. I am really uncomfortable with the government being allowed to tell us which words we can and cannot say.
  • British 'blokes' or 'lads' regularly call each other 'wanker'. Context is key. "Oi! Wankah! Pint?"
  • I take the point, but I think 'nigger'has vastly more offensive potential than 'wanker', 'bitch', or even 'faggot'. Of course the context is important, and between 'niggers' the sting is drawn: but there's a huge, long, unremittingly evil history behind the term 'nigger' which I really think no other word can match.
  • Oh yes, I'm not for a second suggesting that 'wanker' compares to 'nigger'. It reminds me of UK sports presenter Jimmy Hill (he of the prominent chin) saying that calling a black football player a 'nigger' was just a same as someone referring to Jimmy as 'chinny'. 'Chinny' doesn't have the same history either.
  • So we have a culture that is so defined by hatred of certain groups that those groups have had to defuse that hatred by co-opting slurs. I don't have a problem with that. Also, what Plegmund said.
  • I, for instance, am allowed to use 'bitch', since I am a woman and can be one, now and then.
  • goetter, pleeze!
  • I am not a "goetter." I am a proud Goethe-American.
  • As a Canadian still living in Canada, I'm a proud Canadian-American. Thanks for the teevee, bitches!
  • Speaking of, I very nearly sent a thank you note to an elderly couple thanking them for their help and support to our "pogrom." It wouldn't have been so bad except they have a Jewish-sounding name and are the right age to have been Holocaust survivors.
  • Ah, comedy.
  • Whoa - talk about committing settee!
  • In other news, First integrated prom for rural Georgia high school 'Cause the times, they are a-changin'.
  • Who gets to use the 'N' word (Salon, adview req. Maybe.)
  • My hastily assembled yardstick for the use of the N-word is that I think art is sacred and you just don't respond to it the way you respond to other things. This is the point that Imus's supporters don't seem to get (or pretend not to get) when they trot out the rapper defense. Artistic performance and commentary are two different things, and must be judged by different standards. As ridiculously unreal as talk shows can get, they still fall outside the realm of artistic performance. If Imus's show and a Snoop Dogg video were library books, one would be in the fiction section and one in the non-fiction.
  • As ridiculously unreal as talk shows can get, they still fall outside the realm of artistic performance. Not according to Rush "I'm just an entertainer" Limbaugh.
  • Many New Yorkers credit the New York-Historical Society’s landmark exhibition, “Slavery in New York,” which was on view from 2005 to 2006, with increasing awareness of New Yorkers’ role in promoting and profiting from slavery, between the 17th and 19th centuries. Consistently throughout my schooling in New York, our teachers would mention slavery as something having to do with other people. We were taught about New Yorkers' role in the Underground railroad, taken to see Harriet Tubman's house, and generally congratulated on our ancestors being so much better than everybody else's. Non-history-buff New Yorkers who only knew what they were taught in school got a big shock out of that exhibit.
  • No more bitches? Does this mean no more puppies either?