BS: Using the N-word.

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 May 06 - 12:30 PM

Clairrise said:

Unless the defendant can show that it was intended inoffensively, it must be assumed he was using it abusively. After all, you never hear of someone punching someone in the mouth, whilst saying "you no good red-head", or "you *** person with grey-blue eyes", do you?

That means guilty until proven innocent?

---
I think the previous poster is considering that when a word with so strong a negative connotation there arises a presumption that it was used pejoratively. A presumption like that can, of course, be rebutted and perhaps refuted in a particular case.

As I mentioned earlier, even assuming that "nigger" was used pejoratively doesn't necessarily in itself make the baseball bat assault a hate crime.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 May 06 - 12:29 PM

"That means guilty until proven innocent?"

No, it means that where someone is hitting someone else with a baseball bat, it can safely be assumed that they are not muttering sweet nothings and terms of endearment unless thay can show otherwise.

I muttered jealous oaths, and things,
As I punched him black and bluer,
Then I opens up this manhole cover
And I bungs him down a sewer.

From The Portuguese by ???

A case in point... few would take that song as vicious in intent, even though it has lines like "I don't like Portuguese in general, and in particular I didn't like him". Because in the UK for the last many years, no one has seriously discriminated against Iberians, and we can have jokes like Manuel in Fawlty Towers. But I suspect it could be seen very differently in the current climate in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 May 06 - 12:10 PM

"teaches one to pause & think before speaking, especially since she has learned the "n" word in our home--which she is now using--" Kaleea

I don't understand. Does that mean that we must be careful to not say out loud the words we have been thinking? Doesn't it, rather, behoove us to change what we are thinking?

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: NH Dave
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:44 AM

Art,
    My take on the situaation is that I'm not black enough to use the word nigger, Irish enough to use the word Paddy, and so on. It is courtesy thing.

    As for your relatives' view of SLC, the city is heavily LDS, and they tend to cooperate with each other, so it is difficult for a Gentile or non-believer to get along. An aquaintance's father ran a struggling grocery store there some years back and complained that he was nearly failing because the people around the store would walk a block to buy from an LDS owned store, rather than but from him, next door.

   This having been said, there has been some ACLU action about the church trying to run protestors off from the streets around the Temple. I think the land was recently deeded to the city, so the issue becomes a freedom of speach on public property issue.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Desdemona
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:44 AM

Words *do* have a great deal of power, but mostly because we grant it to them. While I deplore racist or any type of pejorative language as a matter of principle, it seems to me that hitting someone with a baseball bat is a pretty clear indication that you don't like them very well! To my mind, taking an action that could conceivably kill another person is inherently "hate"-ful; calling names in the bargain is just adding insult to injury.

~D

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Kaleea
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:43 AM

Living with my 1 1/2 year old neice who is just beginning to learn the importance of language teaches one to pause & think before speaking, especially since she has learned the "n" word in our home--which she is now using--is "no!"

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: GUEST,clairerise
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:40 AM

Unless the defendant can show that it was intended inoffensively, it must be assumed he was using it abusively. After all, you never hear of someone punching someone in the mouth, whilst saying "you no good red-head", or "you *** person with grey-blue eyes", do you?

That means guilty until proven innocent?

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:26 AM

Well, I'd say yes then....

Otherwise, you're only granting the word power over you.

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Janie
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:24 AM

no

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 May 06 - 10:47 AM

CH, my intent was to use normal in the sense of usual or common.

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 May 06 - 10:32 AM

Why empower a word to enable it to hurt you at all?

"have times changed to the extent that this word has, or should, return to normal use?"
Define normal....

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 May 06 - 10:28 AM

... have times changed to the extent that this word has, or should, return to normal use?

NO.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 May 06 - 10:18 AM

Seems to me that in the baseball bat case one has to consider whether the use of the word (and racial referrent) led or followed the motivation.

Wha????

I mean, did the bat-wielder do the assault BECAUSE of racial animus, or did he have a cause of anger preexisting and independent of race (say because of gang tensions, or because he thought the other had stolen his girl friend, or vandalized his car) and use a handy insult in the course of venting his anger.

In the latter case (if believed by a jury) I don't see it as a hate crime. Unless you see the mere use of the word "nigger" as a hate crime , however much one disapproves of that use (and I don't see it that way.)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Big Phil
Date: 18 May 06 - 08:33 AM

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but calling will not hurt me..

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Bobert
Date: 18 May 06 - 08:16 AM

I've commented on this matter in the past on otheer threadas but it comes down to connotation...

When I, as a white person, was called "nigga" by a black when I was working in the jail it was endearing...

But as fir the white guy clubbin' a black and using the word it is far from endearing... Downright hatefull...

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: GUEST, a realist
Date: 18 May 06 - 08:01 AM

Paul Burke - I have, in fact, come across people who use terms that mean 'with red/ginger hair' as a term of abuse, and who for some reason feel affronted at the presence of ginger-haired people.

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 06 - 07:40 AM

The assault case could be a tough call, though.

Urban youth culture HAS changed the contexts of use of the word nigger, no doubt about it. It is widely used in urban hip hop, spoken word, and 'cool' urban ebonics language contexts, and truly does not carry the negative associations it once did. The African American kids have, in that sense, reclaimed the word within their own culture (though not necessarily the culture of their parents!).

But as far as the legal case goes, you have to understand that one kid of one race beating on another kid of another race with a baseball bat while screaming racial epithets, may or may not have race implications these days, especially in gang related crimes.

The real imbalance is, there isn't an equivalent word which can be used as a racial epithet against white kids. But if the fight was between a member of a predominantly African American gang and a Latino gang or an Asian gang, it wouldn't EVER be prosecuted as a racially motivated hate crime, even though a lot of racism comes into play between those cultural groups.

I figure once the dominant society decides that racism can exist in communities of color towards other communities of color, and starts using the hate crimes laws in accordance with that reality, we'll be making some true progress in race relations in this country.

Until then, I guess will just build fences on the Mexican border, and have the mayor on NO declare he intends to make his city a "No Mexicans" zone.

Hate crimes laws can be used a bit too enthusiastically by over-zealous prosecutors who feel their case may not have a good chance of resulting in conviction of assault (or whatever the charge might be, ie manslaughter, attempted murder), especially in gang related crime where witnesses aren't exactly cooperative.

The Mormons/nigger thing is a no brainer.

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 May 06 - 07:31 AM

So 'fool' is alright nowadays then?

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 May 06 - 07:21 AM

Unless the defendant can show that it was intended inoffensively, it must be assumed he was using it abusively. After all, you never hear of someone punching someone in the mouth, whilst saying "you no good red-head", or "you *** person with grey-blue eyes", do you?

As for your relative, well I dislike Mormonism as much as the next atheist, but I suspect her of pigeonholing assumptions.

No, stereotyping words with history of discriminatory intention should not be in normal use until the stereotyping and discrimination have stopped so long ago that it no longer carries the baggage. So it's OK to call someone a quaker, or a left-footer (except in Northern Ireland), but Yid, Paki, raghead, nigger etc... no they are definitely offensive. When people use them (barring rare 'safe' circumstances where everyone understands and agrees) they can be taken as INTENDED as offensive.

Subject: RE: BS: Using the N-word.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 May 06 - 07:14 AM

Who knows Art?

And sometimes I wonder, just who cares?!!!

:-)

Subject: BS: Using the N-word.
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 May 06 - 07:00 AM

Part 1: There is a case of assault (register to read) in New York City in which one young man, "white", is accused of hitting another young man, "black", with a baseball bat. It is being tried as a hate crime because the alleged assaulter called his victim a "nigger" in the process. The defense has been quoted as saying that is "is expected to suggest that a young man growing up in a mixed neighborhood in New York City uses "the N word" as a matter of course and that the word no longer carries the racially charged overtones it has historically."

Part 2: Last week we were visited by a relative from Salt Lake who said that she couldn't get into an educational program that she was interested in because "the niggers and the Mormons are getting all of the slots". I went absolutely ballistic, which isn't at all my personal style.

I am pushing 60, and was raised with the understanding that this was an extremely rude word, akin to kike, sheeny, spic and others, and was absolutely not to be used, under any circumstances. And I am entirely aware that at least some urban "blacks"/African-Americans use it toward each other, and it appears in blacksploitation movies, but I see that as a different issue. So my question. Admittedly the Mudcat is a restricted sample, but have times changed to the extent that this word has, or should, return to normal use?