Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
No, I think it's good to be thoughtful of other peoples' feelings. However, personally I think that it's even more important not to "gloss over" history, and pretend that, for example, the slave era in America never happened. "Tom Sawyer" is an important literary work from that era, and for that reason, I'd like to see it continue to be read as a record of that time...
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andybaby
as I know many young black people today, let me tell you that over 90% don't care, the word Nigga has evolved from a derogatory term into a salutatory term... Stop walking on Egg Shells, Black Men and Women are strong people and can handle a word.
|
The folks in Queer Nation deliberately use the term "queer" often in order to rob it of its ability to shock, hurt, and dismay. Perhaps there are some who feel this strategy will work for the N-word as well. For my part, however, having been raised in the 1950s segregated (and anti-gay) South, I find both terms offensive, no matter who uses them. I think it's best to let such words die on the vine. That being said, I do realize that it's wrong to hold people who lived in different eras to today's standards. There's no way I could enjoy old radio shows, silent movies, and old books if I were to automatically banish them from my life's experience because they did not meet my 21st century ethical standards.
Here are a couple of quotes to help explain the shaping of my feelings on the subject. The first comes from the late John Howard Griffin, a white reporter who, during the 1950’s, chemically and physically altered his appearance to appear black, then went “underground” in an effort to discover what life was like in the African American community:
I learned a strange thing—that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word “nigger” leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and always it stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance.
— John H. Griffin.
Black Like Me.
And here's Muhammad Ali, explaining why he chose jail rather than military service during the Vietnam war:
No Viet Cong ever called me “nigger.”
— Muhammad Ali. Quoted in
Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen.