The whole Michael Richards thing brought this to light, and to be honest, it didn’t really faze me either, after being in both the Football and Basketball locker room in middle school/high school. But I believe, LZ Granderson (a writer for ESPN page 2) put it best.
Read it, maybe it will change your mind about it, it did the trick for me.
5 responses so far ↓
tulip // Dec 1, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Hey George! Nice article. I really thought it was well written.
I can’t believe my 2nd comment to you is a serious one!
Love the site!
Syd // Dec 2, 2006 at 10:31 pm
That was a good article. I think the Michael Richards episode was SO startling and offensive not just due to his use of the n-word, but due to the violent graphic way in which he lashed out verbally, with suggestions of lynching and the like. He used the word in a patently offensive, perjorative and almost frightening manner.
That said, the fact that many members of the African American community spoke up to basically say, “Hey, despite the fact that this is a popular “in” term to use among teens, comedians and musical artists, it STILL holds a lot of pain for us. We don’t approve or like it.” I think when you have that many people saying this thing is really hurtful, you really have to stop and think about whether or not you want to be responsible for adding to that. And I use the word “you” in the universal sense.
It was particularly timely in our household for this debate to come up because my son, who is in high school, had just previously asked me what I thought about his peers using the word, and whether or not I approved of his using it when referring to his friends (as in “what’s up, my n-word” and so forth) now that it had seemingly become more casual to use.
I said that I still had a strong opposition to it because of the history of the word, and that I would never use it and really felt he should search himself out on whether he felt he could live with the fact that he was using casually a word that had caused seriously, a good deal of pain and trauma. He said, “But people in hip hop use it.”
And I said, “Tell me again how that applies to your own conscience in your personal usage of the word?” Which is short for saying, “I’m not so and so’s mother, I’m YOUR mother. We’re talking about you right now, not people in hip hop.”
After the Richards debacle my son came back to me and said, “I’ve been watching the news coverage about this and you’re right. It does still hurt people to hear that word, so I don’t know why I ever thought it would be ok to use it in any context.”
I don’t know why a lot of other people out there ever thought it would be ok either.
MrsDoF // Dec 2, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Seeing that my dad washed my mouth with soap after he heard me say the n– word, I haven’t spoken it since… more than 40 years.
I have no idea what goes on in locker rooms these days, but I can say that I agree with the writer of the article.
Thanks for the link. Reading there broadened my boundaries.
To think it was in the sports section « View from this fat chick // Dec 4, 2006 at 5:25 pm
[...] This blog post at http://verygeorge.com/Â makes me think I’m missing out. ESPN Page 2. Such a good article. Hmmm… [...]
SM // Dec 5, 2006 at 8:23 am
That’s an interesting article and well worth straying from Bill Simmons for five minutes to read.
Do you think that attitudes are going to change about “that word” after this incident?
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