…whose real goal is to control thought.
It is a matter of constant amazement to me how many news publications and editors choose to either keep their readers uninformed and confused (by using a vague and ambiguous term like “a racial epithet” or “a vulgarity” when the word in question is central to an episode, or, in my view worse, use the juvenile “N-word” or “F-word” euphemism as if the actual word isn’t what these codes mean, so the pretense that they are anything but the equivalent on speaking in pig-latin because the kiddies are around is an insult to adults everywhere. I wonder: would it be considered benign to use “N-word” as an insult, as in “You stupid N-word!”? Would am employee still be fired if he told his boss, “Oh, go F-word yourself you mother-F-wording F-word head!”? If the euphemism means the same thing as the word, then why not use the word itself?
This is political correctness gaslighting, and I reject it categorically. Here is a recent headline from the College Fix:
Another ‘N word’-in-context incident costs a university employee her job
That headline is over a story about how absurd and anti-free speech it is to punish a professor for using the word “nigger” in a discussion about free speech, and the publication still balks at using the actual word in the context of its relationship to the story it describes while condemning the university’s decision! What sense that does that make? It’s hypocritical and incompetent, as well as cowardly.
Marlon Anderson, the janitor we discussed last month who was summarily fired for using the word “nigger” to tell a student not to call him a “nigger,” said, in the course of his defense, “So if the class is reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and the teacher is reading the book out loud and it gets to the part where the N-word is, the teacher gets fired?”
Well, yes, I suppose that’s the censorious, anti-intellectual, anti-free speech, thought-manipulating point that the emerging Left wants us to be at. Some are itching to go further…remember the bill submitted by Massachusetts state Rep. Daniel Hunt that would criminalize use of the word “bitch”? After all, since the #1 objective of government, society and civilization is to eliminate prejudice, it is essential to remove the linguistic tools one needs to formulate the taboo attitudes, correct? And, of course, once we have done that, we can move on to banning and punishing the use of other words, terms and phrases that allow the non-woke to even think other “bad thoughts.” The news media has been engaged in a campaign, for example, to make it impossible to distinguish between illegal immigrants, and immigrants. Illegal immigrants? What are those? People can’t be illegal! You’re just attacking immigrants, and immigrants built this great country! They are citizens! This is like Hitler getting Germans to turn on fellow citizens who were Jewish!
Gaslighting.
That story the College Fix gave the cowardly headline to is gaslighting if I ever saw it.
University of North Texas Assistant General Counsel Caitlin Sewell was speaking at a campus symposium titled “When Hate Comes to Campus.,” and used “nigger” as an example on “how the First Amendment can protect offensive language” saying, “If I said something offensive … you know, you can say a lot of offensive things in here because it’s impossible to talk about the First Amendment without saying horrible things. You know, ‘You’re just a dumb nigger and I hate you.’ That alone, that’s protected speech.”
Following the discussion, Student Government Association President Yolian Ogbu went up to Sewell and told her, “I hope you can acknowledge that you’re a racist.” Then the student tweeted
Wait a minute…the student can use “nigger” in a tweet to describe what someone said, but the lawyer is a racist for using the word as an example of something that might be said? Huh? What? Bnt49hyqvT?
[ If you want to risk a head explosion, read the responses to this tweet, which has been retweeted 680 times.]
What should have happened, if this was a school worth graduating from, is that the president and the school’s board should have stood behind Sewell, defended her without equivocation, and explained that once words are formally and literally banned, with the use of them in any context considered worthy of punishment, then free speech and free thought of all kinds is imperiled, and if there is any place where that should be anathema, it is an institution of learning.
And yes, that would mean that the school would have had to endure boycotts, strikes, protests and chants of “no justice, no peace,” but that’s why college administrators are paid the big bucks. No, they are really paid big bucks to be weenies and kowtow to their under-educated, civically ignorant charges. Here was the actual response:
Disgraceful.
In addition, Sewell should not have resigned. If you don’t have the integrity and courage to fight for free speech on campus or anywhere else, then don’t presume to talk about how important it is.
Oh, but wait, there’s more! Guess who the Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts just announced will be receiving its prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor? Oh, come on, guess! Why, it’s Dave Chappelle, the defiantly politically incorrect black comic who used the term “nigger” in his epically successful Netflix special 489 times by my count, and used variations of the word “fuck” 736. I may have missed a few. Chappele, moreover, doesn’t usually use the word “nigger” to quote what someone else says or might say—he refers to other African American as “niggers.” Thus, at the University of North Texas, a professor could not discuss the question of what it means for a prestigious cultural institution to honor an entertainer who habitually says “nigger” without either using code to describe what the comic says openly, or getting fired for using the word at issue.
Got it.
No, I really don’t. It’s gaslighting. These people are trying to make me think that I’m the crazy one.
My pledge: I will regard all words in the English language as among the tools I have to speak with, write with, argue with, joke with, and most importantly, think with. I will gladly be accountable when I use any words irresponsibly, but I will not submit to efforts to drag me and my society into the world of Big Brother, by accepting efforts to literally eliminate any of my tools, or attempts to decree that some Americans can use certain words, and others cannot.
Fuck that.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack: Chappele, moreover, doesn’t usually use the word “nigger” to quote what someone else says or might say—he refers to other African American as “niggers.”
Or white people. One of his funniest skits was a Leave it to Beaver type black and white sit-com about a white family with the last name Nigger. Every line was set up for a double-entendre (“Linda’s dating that Nigger boy”; 7:00 reservations for the Nigger family) which was innocent in the story, but played on racial stereotypes nonetheless (Dave played the milkman and had his own lines about the family).
Fearless and hilarious. I have not checked out his specials. I miss his sketch comedy, though.
-Jut
Like “The Niggar Family”…
Was it spelled that way?
Well, still give Chappelle credit.
-Jut
It was. And I do.
Chappelle is brilliant. I don’t disagree with the honor at all—in fact, it’s one of the few in recent years that is indisputably deserved. (Tina Fey?)
This post is an excellent challenge to “keep it real” in terms of not pandering to the speech censoring clods out there who have nothing better to do than clutch their pearls.
I suspect the reason many allude to those words, especially nigger (holy crap!) online is in part because they’ll be censored by social media algorithms and therefore lose a portion of their audience. There is also the automatic knee jerk fear of the accusation of “racist” even when the context clearly isn’t so. Honestly just typing the word gives me a negative pavlovian response…I bet I’m not alone.
This summer I was listening to Tribe Called Quest on vinyl with the windows open. After about the 10th time the rappers said “nigger” I actually wondered if someone was going to freak out (not that the music was that loud but still). It was then it occurred to me that as a part black person I was afraid to listen to my own peoples music because some white wokester passing by would get upset.
So yeah…fuck that!
It’s interesting how Hollywood does this especially regarding the word “fuck”. Apparently in a movie in most cases, you lose your PG rating if the word is used more than once: https://www.polygon.com/2015/10/22/9592366/The-martian-rating-fuck
Thinking about this a little bit more, it is not simply a gas-lighting power play. It can be a little more complex than that, though not necessarily more intelligent.
There is a concern that inaction allows injustice to flourish. Where were the “decent” people when people were being lynched. Cowed into silence? Possibly.
So, the ethos is: you must oppose the slightest bit of racism so that big acts don’t occur (kind of the broken window theory applied to race). How do you do that,? Do not let racist language go unchallenged. Silence is complicity.
That leads to an indiscriminate attack on the word. Like I said, it is not necessarily intelligent. But, if you understand that people (even stupid people) should be vigilant about nipping racism in the bud (butt?), you use “N-Word” so that even the lowest common denominator cannot be confused about whether it was racist or not. The problem is that, when the lowest common denominator sets the rule, everyone is dumbed down. So, if you don’t follow the dumbed down rule, you are forcing the other side into a situation where they have to decide whether to be complicit in the face of racist language. Of course, you can’t do that.
Of course, I do that. My dad is a product of the 50’s. He will talk about colored people. He means no offense and, despite Jim Crow, it was the acceptable term at the time. I stick to black and white because, as is the theme here, you can only dictate language to me so much. I will not be responsible for your inferences.
-Jut
” I will regard all words in the English language as among the tools I have to speak with, write with, argue with, joke with, and most importantly, think with. I will gladly be accountable when I use any words irresponsibly”
Likewise.
My personal threshhold may be lower than yours when it comes to obscenity and scatology. Certainly it’s far lower than my son’s, and over 90% of my friends and acquaintances.
I will use the N-word when appropriate. I will use “N-word” as in the previous sentence when I feel that’s appropriate. I will even say “Jevovah”, or “YWHW”, though more often, just G_d if amongst observant Jews. That’s just a matter of consideration, manners.
By using scatological and obscene words sparingly, it adds extra emphasis when they *are* used. To ban them completely would prevent this desirable situation.
Such would be banners can not just go fornicate off, then can go fuck off.
Exactly.
I congratulate ms Ogbu on offering herself up as a example of why some less-than-kind individual might be driven to actually employ that phrase rather than just cite it as an example of rude, but protected, speech.
Another potential pop-up campus trolling flier: “Free the N-Word” .
Hmm, while I fully support free speech, especially the stupidity of coming down hard on people using the word on a comparative or education or clarification for the fuss. I personally detest both words.
I really don;t think much of the cleverness of some kid screaming a sentence with ‘fuck’ used as noun, verb, adjective etc one sentence. My brother and buddies did that as teens and he was mocked for lack of words and imagination. I’ve tried to resist using it, but the expedience when in pain or angry means I fail roughly fortnightly. I’m just as offended by the word ‘nigger’ and have never used it outside a very rare topic like this. Some words come with too heavy a connotation. Not that I think they should be banned, just treated like you treat any other supremely rude usage in the context. Context can be everything, Good comics use roughly the same vocabulary as bad ones, so it’s not the words themselves.
I’m fully aware that in some periods, ‘nigger’ was the more PC phrase than some. The fact that some can use it with impunity while others lose jobs/careers about a few words or some stupid costume has actually created a cognitive dissonance that a word that was the utmost forbidden has become effectively de-stigmatized to me.
I still don’t like either word as they are used to shock or as a lazy all-purpose word to show scorn about someone else. I prefer clever slams,
The PC left likes to to remain uneasy about whether you have crossed the line about offending somebody or some “oppressed” group. As Jordan Peterson stated regarding speech codes on university campuses and elsewhere, has a unpardonable offense been committed if one person in one thousand is offended by your comment?
The one in a thousand does not bother me in the least. People have demonstrated over sensitivity for years now. My line is probably closer to one in two. But I do tend to separate offense caused by cruelty of the words’ connotations from the vague fear of offense.
I rarely seek to offend. I want my offenses to be deliberate not accidental. Along with that not intending offense should be an apology accepted not trial worthy.
Sooo, is it ok to tell the sprinkler joke, then?
“Marlon Anderson, the janitor we discussed last month”
FTR, Marlon Anderson (who has a positively sterling reputation locally) is a security guard, or as one former student put it: A beacon of light and understanding.
I’ve taken great pleasure in watching the self-anointed local intelligentsia scrambling like cockroaches while failing miserably to prevent being hoisted on their own petard.