Using the N word and other defamatory phrases

July 28, 2008 by Gary Seigel.

 A few weeks ago, Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized for crude off-air comments about Barack Obama that were caught on tape while preparing for an interview on Fox News. The situation was particularly embarrassing because sections of that off-air, private conversation included the N word, perhaps surprising since Jackson himself was out front in the movement for a voluntary ban on that word.

Then in mid-July, tempers flared during a particularly sizzling session of The View’s “Hot Topics” segment while the ladies discussed Jackson’s apology and disagreed about the use of the slur, regardless of who’s saying it. 

Elizabeth expressed concern about living in a world where pop culture permits such racial language.  The controversy seemed particularly focused on her comment to Whoopie that we should try to solve this because— “We live in the same world.”Whoopi fiercely disagreed with her co-host.  “We do live in different worlds, it’s just that way.”Though this particular conversation did not seem unusual for this show, it brings up an interesting question. Can Whoopie use that term privately – in her world – but it becomes particularly obscene when used by someone who  is not African American?

According to an article published through Harvard University, the word “nigger,” a key term in American culture is racist and foul: “It is a profoundly hurtful racial slur meant to stigmatize African Americans. It has accompanied innumerable lynchings, beatings, acts of arson, and other racially motivated attacks upon blacks. It is the signature phrase of racial prejudice.”

And yet — this “cultural obscenity”  has become a private code word that African-Americans use sometimes even affectionately, an inside word, an understood language the belongs inside a particular world.

I’m wondering what word equivalents exist in other cultures?    Gay men, for example, often refer to each other as “bitches,” but that was never a derogatory term to describe homosexuals. It’s a new adapted, code word.  What other examples can you think of and how do you feel about the use of these words in popular culture today?

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