By now, most people have heard about the radio talk show host who got himself in trouble for using some racially-charged words to describe a woman’s basketball team. I’ll avoid using his name — I don’t think he deserves any more press.
As i watched some of the coverage on this morning’s news shows, the discussion focused on the double standard of why blacks* can use the “n-word”, while whites can’t. Out of a panel of news hosts, prominent black activists and representatives of the offended basketball team, everyone agreed that it existed, but no-one seemed to be able to crystalize why. Let me help you guys out.
White slave owners used it as a term of horrific racial hatred and intolerance.
It was used for so long that it became part of the black-american vernacular. Used among peers, there’s no chance that one black guy is using it in the same context as the white slave owners of days past.
Why’s this so hard to understand? White people — you can’t use it. Get over it. The fact that blacks use it doesn’t make it okay for you to use it.
You may not have been a slave owner, but you are automatically lumped in w/ the idiots that share your skin color.
Isn’t the irony delicious?
* Note: I use the term “blacks” since “African American” is inaccurate. Not all Africans are black, and not all black Americans are African.