When to properly use the N word

Yeah, I know. While I'm not going to defend what I'd do, I'd still do it.

 

The best thing about it is that the kid boots interviewed is white!

 

The word needs to be scraped from the lexicon like a barnacle. Forever.

I've seen it used in a benign context in Playboy interviews, but it won't fly anywhere else.

 

"Mark Fuhrman said nigger; so O.J. is innocent."

 

That's just a culturally biased way of thinking...

Like it or not, but among the black culture the word has different meanings. I mean, who is whitey to decide how people can and cannot talk.

But I fully agree that it has no place in a newspaper, unless it was say a white coach who called a black linebacker the word...

 

Nothing good comes out of using that word. That isn't a radical concept. It offends certain people and it makes others uncomfortable. It empowers mean spirited people. There's no right application for it.

Keeping it around for selective use is like keeping something rotten in the fridge. Throw the shit out and be done with it.

That's just "whitey's" opinion.

 

But if the word is part of someone's culture, then we can't just try and sanitize it for our consumption. That's like saying girl's shouldn't wear thongs and low-rise jeans because it presents a bad image and offends old people.

You're right. THere is no "right" application for it. But does that make it wrong for two guys from inner-city Baltimore to call each other that, when that is what they grew up around?

 

Tell me you did not compare the most powerful slur in American history to a thong and low-rise jeans.

Hey, if a guy uses that as apart of his everyday culture, then that's on him. But obviously, we live in a society with something called boundaries. Most of us, religious or not, wouldn't say "fuck" to a pastor, and all I'm saying is that is inappropriate language to use in front of another person you don't know and certainly not to someone in an interview setting.

It's not just black people who have the right to be offended by that word, but white people, too. And if I'm an interviewer, white or black, and my subject drops that word left and right, then I'm going to drop my notepad and tell him that's inappropriate for the interview. A male interviewee wouldn't drop the word "pussycat" in front of me, so why should I cut anyone any slack for dropping the n-bomb? I wouldn't, is the answer.

 

Yep.  Plus, when used in a black-to-white conversation it can be used to whitey uncomfortable.  That probably wasn't the intention in this case -- sounds like a kid talking like a kid -- but it's not good when the reporter isn't in control of the interview.  It would take a rather grizzled reporter to not get at least nudged a little by this.

 

I agree, completely. I said earlier that it has no place for the newspaper. If I'm interviewing a football player and he starts dropping *N* bombs, I'll tell him I can't print that language. But for the culture of boys being boys, then I have no problem with it. If it's socially acceptable for their culture, who am I to decide why that's right or wrong. That's where I compared the decency standard of the thong and the low-rise jeans...

 

Ronaldo, I understand what you're saying. But you're making this a journalism thing and it's much bigger than that. Fuck what belongs in the paper, it has no place in our society. It's not current, it's not necessary and it's not wanted.

A ton of shit has gone down so people wouldn't use or be persuaded to use that term anymore. There are some things we might never learn.

 

I'm white so I will NEVER use it.

I have too much to lose if the African-Americans I work with lose my respect.