Thursday, May 03, 2007

ALARM BELLS RING AS SLUR IS FORBIDDEN

Now, I am aware that there are some very passionate thoughts and feelings all tied up with this issue - but I think it is worth discussing since it has been brought to the forefront.


WP: Movement spreads against ‘n-word’
Slur ignites passions in churches, campuses and beyond

By Avis Thomas-Lester
The Washington Post
Updated: 12:18 a.m. CT May 2, 2007
The very mention of the word sends Jennifer Lowery-Bell's mind spinning back to a painful time.

"That word reminds me of lynchings and black men disappearing in the night and all of the dehumanizing things that used to happen to African Americans," said Lowery-Bell, 59, a black woman raised in the South. "I think no one should ever use that word. I think it should be against the law."

Long before music mogul Russell Simmons called on the recording industry last week to strike the N-word, Lowery-Bell of Largo wrote her governor, her county executive and her County Council member, asking them to help ban the six-letter racial slur. She's part of an upsurge of popular sentiment against the word, not only in the entertainment industry but in churches, schools and city halls.

The Rev. Grainger Browning of Ebenezer A.M.E. Church in Fort Washington has been urging his members to stop using it. Students at the historically black Bowie State University banished the word from two dorms and started charging those who use it $25 fines.

Nationally, the NAACP held a symbolic funeral for the word two weeks ago, part of its Stop Campaign to strike such language from the lexicon. The publisher of black magazines Ebony and Jet ordered writers late last year to stop using the word. The New York City Council passed a resolution in February asking residents to refrain from using the word. And tiny Brazoria in southeastern Texas tried unsuccessfully to pass an ordinance leveling $500 fines for uttering the word.

During deliberations there, black residents protested the proposed ban more vigorously than their white neighbors, Mayor Kenneth Corley said.

"When whites use it, they use it to hurt," said Corley, who is white. "When the black community uses it, they disrespect themselves."

His experience touches on the central paradox of the campaign to excise the N-word from common usage: The effort is aimed not just at shutting down racists, shock jocks and supremacists. It's also aimed at educating African Americans, many of them born after the civil rights era, who have adopted the word as an endearment.

There is a difference, said Leonard Young, 19, of Fort Washington: Racists end the word with an "er," African Americans end it with an "a."

"I don't think it's offensive," said Young, a black computer science major at Prince George's Community College. "It hasn't been offensive since slavery. It's only offensive when people of other races use it."

Fallout from what Imus said
The movement to ban the word picked up momentum last year after actor Michael Richards's racist rant toward black patrons in a Los Angeles comedy club. It got another boost this month when shock jock Don Imus referred to the predominantly African American Rutgers University women's basketball team in racially loaded terms.

The fallout from Imus's comments led to the axing of his show on MSNBC and CBS Radio and prompted music mogul Simmons to call on recording artists to stop using the N-word, "bitch" and "ho" in versions of songs played on the radio and in music videos.

The Imus controversy also sparked conversations among African Americans over dinner tables, on lawn chairs and in church pews.

Young contemplated the matter while on a lunch break with Devin Tyler, 18, of Hyattsville, a business-hotel management major. Tyler, who is black, admits using the N-word with his black friends. He has also heard his parents say it but in a different way.

"My parents use it to talk about people who are doing wrong . . .," he said. "They use it about people who are acting negative."

Horace Avent, 39, a black security officer from Waldorf, said he uses the N-word "with the fellas when we are playing around." He doesn't feel he is being insensitive to his history. "It's a word, and I'm not offended by a word."

Marcia Harris, 38, is trying to combat that kind of thinking. Co-founder of the Web site Banthenword.com, the New York woman said she carries around a book with graphic pictures of lynchings and pulls it out whenever she hears an African American use the N-word.

"I show them those pictures of black men being lynched when you know the racists who did it were saying this word," she said. "This word came from hate. It was about hating us. It is not an endearment."

That sort of education, said Jahar Abraham, 39, of Southeast Washington, changed his mind.


Abraham, manager and promoter of the go-go band Familiar Faces, said he used the N-word until a mentor exposed him to its use in African American history.

"Some of these are kids who don't know their history. You know what MLK means to them? Money-loving killers, not Martin Luther King Jr. They took those initials and made them about how they feel," Abraham said. "That's what they do with that word."

In his book "The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why," The Washington Post's Jabari Asim traces the open use of the slur by African Americans to the late 1960s. He argues that the word, no matter who utters it, has "abetted our systematic dehumanization."

Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of black popular culture at Duke University, disagrees, saying African American artists use the word "to capture the complexity of black life." He said the real debate should be over "stopping the negative use of it."

"If you look at how black artists have used that word, historically, they have used it in creative ways, the same way black cooks have made chitterlings into a delicacy," Neal said.

But Browning, the Fort Washington pastor, said the wide usage in books, films and comedy acts -- including those of such black comedians as Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle -- has desensitized young people to the word's ugly history.

Adults need to share their painful experiences, Browning said, recalling the slurs he heard as a 13-year-old in 1965, integrating a white high school in Hampton, Va.

‘The pain of our history’
"As adults, we sometimes shield our children about the pain of our history by not telling them," Browning said. "But they need to know. They need to know how that word has been used against us, so they will know that they should never use it."

At Bowie State, students and administrators decided the best way to stop young black men from saying the word was to ban it from their dorms and levy fines on those who use it. Artie L. Travis, vice president of student affairs, said students in the two male dorms voted for the ban two years ago.

"Part of what we are trying to do is prepare them for being out in the world and to teach them leadership roles," he said. "That word does not go along with those goals."

Tsion Bennett, 24, a communications major and spoken word performer at Bowie State who is black, said he does not use the N-word in his writing but admits to dropping it in casual conversation. "I can understand why, in an environment that's trying to encourage elevated thinking, you would say, 'Let's begin to distance ourselves from that word,' " he said.

Lowery-Bell said she decided to approach Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) after hearing about Corley's effort in Texas. "Governor O'Malley, a policy of this type will provide some healing and closure for African Americans," she wrote in February, sending copies to Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) and council member Samuel H. Dean (D-Mitchellville.)

An O'Malley spokesman said the letter has been referred to the governor's legislative staff for further study. In 2002, while O'Malley was mayor of Baltimore, the City Council there passed a nonbinding resolution condemning the N-word.

"I don't think they took me seriously," Lowery-Bell said. "People tend not to think this is important. But to me and other African Americans, it is very important."

Staff writer Lonnae O'Neal Parker contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18426888/

9 comments:

  1. my under-standing of the Don Imus affair was that he actually got the ARSE because he threatened to expose 9/11 for the fckn 'con-job' it was!

    him calling 'a spade' 'a nigga' was simply a handy excuse!

    he had been 'paying out' with 'the n-word' for yonks....too much of a coinky-dink that all of a sudden! he's 'taken to task' on it.....apprxmtly the same time as Rosie O'D decided to 'shoot her gob off'!

    coincidence?

    nah!

    don't believe in them!

    "where some see coincidence, i see consequence!"

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  2. Jimbo, are you under the delusion that you have a understanding?

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  3. At the risk of sounding preachy "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks".

    How much good would banning the word do when a persons heart is unchanged.

    The n-word is more than just a word it's an attitude.

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  4. And this is just one of the many reasons that I love Roh - he cuts right to the chase.

    I was thinking basically the same thing, Roh. It's just like racism - you could pass a law against it - but is that going to make it go away?

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  5. nikki: "...it's just like racism - you could pass a law against it - but is that going to make it go away?"

    only if you could 'pass a law' to make reality dis-appear; because that's wht 'a racist' is: some-one who looks @ the world with their eyes & ears open!

    race is not 'a social construct'; it is a hard, proven scientific fact!

    the implications of hard, proven scientific facts are ignored @ yr extreme peril: just like the drongo who jumped off the Empire State Building without a parachute thinking he could 'float' or 'fly' to the ground several hundred feet below!

    OTW: we could safely embrace 'communism' right?

    why: it might even work!

    but: of course: those who instigated and promoted communism; viz: the fckn jews, were and ARE well aware that race DOES INDEED EXIST!...hence: their advocacy of self-destructive garbage like 'diverstity' & 'multi-culturalism' while they, of course, retain all 'the top dog' positions!
    (and don't try denying that...i'v got all the relevant stuff from MacDonald's trilogy right here in front of me!...including the jews' rôle in khyboshing the US Immigration Act in 1965)

    tell me, Nikki....could you enlighten us as to how many blacks, mestizos or evn Asians r permitted to reside in Israel and enjoy the full priveleges of Israeli 'citizen-ship'....i put 'citizen-ship' in 'quotes' because a Talmudic gangster enclave hardly qualifies as 'a state'.

    perhaps you could also enlighten us dumkopfs from Down Under as to how many jews live in or near black neighbourhoods in the US?

    we hear loud and long protestations from jewish pressure-groups like the ADL and the SPLC abt 'discrimination against African-Americans'....do they practice wht they preach?

    or do they, perhaps, like u, Nikki, live in safe, leafy, high-priced white suburbs or, better yet, 'gated communities' with 24-hr armed security guards patrolling every ½-hr?

    does their rhetoric match their deeds?

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  6. jimbo said...
    "only if you could 'pass a law' to make reality dis-appear; because that's wht 'a racist' is: some-one who looks @ the world with their eyes & ears open!"

    If that's the case, you guys might be helped by glasses and hearing aids.

    jimbo - I live in a middle class neighborhood that is very multicultural. A walk around my area will find Asians, African-Americans, Native Americans, Middle Easterners, and whites all co-existing and enjoying life. There is very little in the way of crime, and people here look out for each other.

    Your hatred has absolutely blinded your perceptions and reality. Is it possible for you to address the original article or are you simply too mentally challenged to formulate an opinion on something other than hatred of others?

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  7. nikki: "I live in a middle class neighbourhood that is very multicultural. A walk around my area will find Asians, African-Americans, Native Americans, Middle Easterners and whites all co-existing and enjoying life. There is very little in the way of crime and people here look out for each other..."

    Asians: rarely if evr cause prblms for whites except, perhaps, occasional heroin-dealing!

    'African-Americans': yeh....OK!...how 'african american'?......½, ¼....less?...perhaps they're the 'uppity' niggz who, like Chris Rock, can't stand NIGGAZ!
    one wonders wht sort of 'African Americans' would be living in 'middle-class neighbourhood' to start with (?)

    'Native Americans': usually, from wht i'v read, depends on what & where (i.e: wht tribe and wht location)...some 'Native Americans' r almost white....so much so: that many whites claim to hv 'Native American' ancestry....usually 'Cherokee'!; some behave reasonable; some are total scum...that's wht i'v been told!

    'Middle Easterners': that's too broad a dscrptn to assess prply....many Iranians are white, there r large pockets of white genes still in Lebanon and prts of Turkey; many Palestinians could pass for 'white': as could many Iraqis and Afghanis!

    sorry, Nikki...that little demographic depiction of yr 'hood jes' don't 'cut it'!

    yr little 'enclave' sounds nice, comfy & safe to me!

    to hv any 'street cred', you'd hafta be crashin' in some 'hood like Detroit or environs!

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  8. Ya know jimbo - everytime you post on here you seem to get just a little stranger.

    Now, personally, I think you are a little nutso and maybe just a little strung out.

    I was responding to this when I characterized the neighborhood that I live in:

    jimbo said...

    "or do they, perhaps, like u, Nikki, live in safe, leafy, high-priced white suburbs or, better yet, 'gated communities' with 24-hr armed security guards patrolling every ½-hr?"

    Get it straight - you do not know a thing about me. You don't know where I live or where I have been. You don't have a clue to the circles I travel in. You know nothing about my past or my present. Hence, your ruminations on what makes me tick are just suppositions - and very far off base at that.

    I am not trying to gain "street creds," as you put it - I don't have to. None of us do.

    You seem to think you know a whole lot about America, our societal mores, our legal system, and our values. But everytime you open your mouth you demonstrate how completely ignorant you are.

    You belong to a group that calls itself a "church," and whose founder was so emotionally and mentally challenged that he offed himself. The next leader tried to entice teen-aged girls across state lines, took a teen-aged bride, abused her, married a woman old enough to be his mother who eventually ordered the destruction of his frozen sperm. He was so brilliant that he asked a federal informant to kill a federal judge. He did this after being warned by several of those people close to him that the man was, in fact, an informant.

    This is what you worship - this is what you follow. And, you have the audacity to come on to this blog and try to sit in judgement of others?

    The "Creativity Movement" is a sham - it is nothing and is run by a loser who caters to a bunch of losers and misfits.

    Incidently, how tall are you?

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  9. nikki: "Get it straight - you do not know a thing about me. You don't know where I live or where I have been. You don't have a clue to the circles I travel in. You know nothing about my past or my present. Hence, your ruminations on what makes me tick are just suppositions - and very far off base at that"

    fine!
    then don't YOU try the same fckn shit with me, OK?
    if i know nuthin' abt YOU...then, YOU know LESS THAN NUTHIN' abt me...or evn abt my country, Australia!

    "I am not trying to gain 'street creds,' as you put it - I don't have to. None of us do"

    i was simply wonderin' whthr or not youse have 'the courage of yr convictions': youse spout a lot of bull-shit abt 'equality' & 'diversity' but i bet youse keep a HUGE DISTANCE between yr-selfs and fckn niggaz!....just like all 'liberal democratic' twats do?
    convince me that i'm wrong on that!
    I make no such pretensions: i don't like niggaz or jewz period!

    "You seem to think you know a whole lot about America, our societal mores, our legal system, and our values. But everytime you open your mouth you demonstrate how completely ignorant you are"

    i know wht i read and wht i hear: i'v also spoken with expat Yanks here in Oz....and they all say pretty much the same thing abt yr multi-cultural prblm: but: sure!...i hvn't lived there, so i can't state any-thing categorically: but i can sure as HELL have a bloody good guess!

    "You belong to a group that calls itself a 'church,' and whose founder was so emotionally and mentally challenged that he offed himself. The next leader tried to entice teen-aged girls across state lines, took a teen-aged bride, abused her, married a woman old enough to be his mother who eventually ordered the destruction of his frozen sperm. He was so brilliant that he asked a federal informant to kill a federal judge. He did this after being warned by several of those people close to him that the man was, in fact, an informant"

    yr just like all these fckn kike antis' ain't u, BABE?
    u were pretty well demolished re: Matt Hale's 'trial' in a prvs thread by me & now u see fit to re-hash the same bull-shit all over agin'...whn you think the coast is clear!
    BTW: i seem to remember u saying sumthin' along the lines of my accurately depicting the prblms with the American legal system...so: you see: maybe i know a shit-load more abt youse than u think, hunh?
    as for the behaviour of Klassen's successors: so fckn wot?
    we make no claims to be a collection of 100% 'model citizens': any org or group will have bad apples....how many POS r there in the Republicunts or the Democraps.....?.....and: BTW: while that kind of behaviour in whites is 'aberrant', for niggaz, it's simply 'TNB'!

    "This is what you worship - this is what you follow. And, you have the audacity to come on to this blog and try to sit in judgement of others?"

    i don't 'judge' 'cos i'm not A JUDGE....once agin': youse kike clownz 'twist' words to suit yr own friggin' meanings....jes' like ZOG has been doin' for the last fifty yrs!.....i state facts & exhibit implications!
    i do, how-ever, 'discriminate' as every-one on the face of this Earth does: so: my 'rule of thumb' is: 'praise where praise is due' and 'discrimination where discrimination is appropriate'!

    "The 'Creativity Movement' is a sham - it is nothing and is run by a loser who caters to a bunch of losers and misfits"

    i think yr referring to yr own out-fit there: certainly: the WCOTC is less than it was: just as any org' would be if its leading lights were imprisoned on bull-shit charges!

    how-ever: if Hale was released to-morrow, i would bet you $1000 that, within a coupla yrs, the WCOTC would have MILLIONS of members!

    "Incidently, how tall are you?"


    taller than u, u kike runt!

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