Published: July 22, 2008 05:20 pm            

No one should use offending words

The Reverend Jesse Jackson has done it again with his offensive slip-of-the-tongue open mike word dropping. This time he used the N-word in referring to another African American, a politically incorrect move on his part that has resulted in surprisingly diverse reactions.

Many African Americans insist the N-word is their word to use as a term of endearment, a word to call someone of their own race, but not a word for racial outsiders. Whoopie Goldberg on the TV show, The View, agreed. However, if a white person says the N-word, it is considered bigotry, hatred, downright prejudice.

I do not believe a word with so much venom and bad history can mean one thing for one group of people and the complete opposite for everyone else. The N-word is a bad word, regardless of whose mouth speaks it. It is a bad word of itself for all the badness it connotes. Rap songs are riddled with that word, but because an African American rap star sings such lyrics, we are supposed to condone it. I do not. If the word is good enough for African Americans, then it should be good enough for anyone else. Or bad enough for all of us.

When a word’s meaning and message are dependent on who is speaking them, our language is in big trouble. I agree with Ms. Jehmu Greene of The Women Count Pac who calls this double-standard a real hypocrisy on the part of African Americans. If the word is demeaning to one segment of society, why should that demeaned segment feel comfortable keeping that word alive? It makes no sense to me that as a white man I have to say “The N-word,” but the African American feels justified in out rightly calling another of his race “n.....”.

We need to play down these words, not only the ones that disparage African Americans but those that belittle Italians, Jews, Asians, Southerners, West Virginians, and anyone else who have earned biased names over the years. We should object to being called these words and at the same time refrain from calling members in our own ethnic, racial, and regional groups by those same derogatory words.

Why can’t we use language that’s uplifting instead of that which succeeds in putting down others and ourselves?

Salvatore Buttaci

Princeton, W.Va.

        

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