AF-am Group: Are people really going to bat for Bill Maher on DU?

[Rollo]

34. Sticks and stones...

I figure a member of a race or ethnicity gets a mulligan for using self-deprecating racial slurs... But it's not something I approve of when members of other races or ethnicities use them, especially if it's in a hostile context.

I've seen blacks use the n-word among themselves, and mostly it appears to be a sort of a bonding experience. If talking like that is a right, then they've earned it.

Similarly for other races and ethnicities, using slurs directed at their own.

Unfortunately I'm of such a mixed European ancestry I can't claim any one nationality other than American. And the n-word has never been part of my vocabulary, and never will be. When someone not of a certain race or ethnicity uses a racial slur directed at members of other races or ethnicity, my response, if any, is usually, "I don't use that word." They usually get the message and stop using it, at least with me.

I do recall back in the 70's a black friend of mine going on and on about how great a certain hair product was, that was/is called "Afro-Sheen". After a while I quipped, "Oh yes, that's great, and I use 'Honky-Glow''. He doubled over with laughter.

I also recall a movement to ban from public schools the use of Mark Twain's great novel, "Huckleberry Finn" because of its use of the n-word. I have mixed feelings about that, because the novel was revolutionary for its time showing the trials and tribulations of a black man in the antebellum South, as a real person with feelings and emotions. It is, in fact, great literature. At the same time, I can see a big problem if children of today were required to recite passages containing the n-word. It likely would be very hurtful to their classmates of African-American heritage, and also bad if it legitimized, in a child's mind, use of the word in a hostile context.