The 'N' word

[bodie]

Just listening to a discussion on my local radio.  It stems from news of a french man in his seventies who has been sent to prison in France for using the word 'negro'.

I am quite baffled really.  I thought 'nigger' to be offensive but didn't realise 'negro' was too.

I don't really use either term  but it was interesting to hear a Jamaican ring up and said he wasn't offended at all by the 'n' words,  but found being called  'black' offensive

The only point i wanted to make (and i didn't get through to the show)  was that we often see black
people calling each other 'nigger'.  Snoop dog calls his buddies 'nigger'  so how come it is offensive for a white person to say it ?  and how the hell do you explain that to a child who is wondering why he shouldn't use that word and yet hears it in a lot of music?

thoughts....anyone?

[eris]

it's just another fnord. i know someone that straypainted  I HATE NIGGERS in our neighborhood just because he knew it would piss thousands of people off. he wasnt actually a racist, just an anarchist.

and i had a black man accuse me of being racist once when i called him 'boy'. I call all members of the fairer sex 'boy' as a way to humiliate him. I guess i can see why he was upset but i really didnt mean it THAT way

as for the kids hearing it, I always thought it was the parents job to explain the world instead of shelter their kids from it

[Al Swearegen]

Yes. I think I can. We call each other spazzes. In real life, and outside the community, being called a spazz is far more likely to get the caller of such a descriptor a nice "Fuck you mate". Around my close friends they can call me an Austistic little c**t and I won't blink an eyelid and will probably laugh it off.

It has do do with being "in the collective" to which the word is associated.  If I call you a nigger as a black person then I am black too and so the insult is countered by my own skin. It is like a toad calling another toad ugly. If I am a rich man and I call someone on a lower socio-economic status "poor white trash" I am holding over my elevated position to them.

If a black person calls me a spazz and I call him a nigger then it really becomes an issue of where the bigger offence is felt. It becomes a lineball and likely down to who can make a bigger case for bigotry and offence. I suspect the black person would win that contest. In the public consciousness blacks, women, gays and spazzes....in that order of recognition on minorities.

Not saying that one is more important or that they subscribe to my particular thought, but just how I se it. People are far more conscious not to discriminate against black people than disabled people and gay people than disabled people.

I think in some way though it is actually a good thing. If we can desensitise the word spazz and gays can desensitise the word queer and black people can desensitise the word nigger, then this is actually a positive thing. it is when people outside that communal collective come in to adopt their words and accept a familiarityfor a belonging they do not have that it becomes difficult.

[ZEGH8578]

in norwegian, theres almost no adjective left to describe someone who is black, without causing great offense to everyone
"black" is greatly offensive, "negro" is greatly offensive, "colored" is greatly offensive

the only word left is "african", but if its an american black person, or a french black person... youll have to spend time explaining this
"oh this guy - italian guy but of a heritage that has a high likelyhood of being somewhere in africa, based on his exterior appearance being consistent with that of populations along the ivory coast region - wait... what was i talking about"

[Parts]

So would you go to jail if you played this?

The Negroes in the forest brightly feathered.
And they are saying, "Forget the night.
Live with us in forests of azure.
Out here on the perimeter there are no stars.
Out here we is stoned immaculate."

So Emile your from France   and love to say stuff about the US and how backward it is,  How do you feel on this one?

['Butterflies']

So would you go to jail if you played this?

The Negroes in the forest brightly feathered.
And they are saying, "Forget the night.
Live with us in forests of azure.
Out here on the perimeter there are no stars.
Out here we is stoned immaculate."

You wouldn't go to jail, but I'm surprised it isn't censored if it's played on radios, like what happened with "faggot" in the Dire Straits, and Pogues/Kirsty McColl songs.

['Butterflies']

Just listening to a discussion on my local radio.  It stems from news of a french man in his seventies who has been sent to prison in France for using the word 'negro'.

I am quite baffled really.  I thought 'nigger' to be offensive but didn't realise 'negro' was too.

I don't really use either term  but it was interesting to hear a Jamaican ring up and said he wasn't offended at all by the 'n' words,  but found being called  'black' offensive

The only point i wanted to make (and i didn't get through to the show)  was that we often see black
people calling each other 'nigger'.  Snoop dog calls his buddies 'nigger'  so how come it is offensive for a white person to say it ?  and how the hell do you explain that to a child who is wondering why he shouldn't use that word and yet hears it in a lot of music?

thoughts....anyone?

I can't speak for France, because I wouldn't know if "negro" has a more loaded meaning over there, but jail seems excessive whatever the circumstances. I don't know the details of that case though.

I don't have any idea why some black people call each other "Nigger," but get offended when a white person says it. It's definately not a word I ever use to describe a black person though.

I kinda think that the more you try and stigmatize a word, the more offensive the word becomes. I think that's counter-productive. I do see why it is an offensive word to blacks, and that's why I would never use the word in that context.

[bodie]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099165/I-stupid-use-word-negro-says-perfume-boss-TV-race-storm.html

sorry,  he faces jail,  but i don't think he has been sentenced

[Émile Armand]

Just listening to a discussion on my local radio.  It stems from news of a french man in his seventies who has been sent to prison in France for using the word 'negro'.

I am quite baffled really.  I thought 'nigger' to be offensive but didn't realise 'negro' was too.

I don't really use either term  but it was interesting to hear a Jamaican ring up and said he wasn't offended at all by the 'n' words,  but found being called  'black' offensive

The only point i wanted to make (and i didn't get through to the show)  was that we often see black
people calling each other 'nigger'.  Snoop dog calls his buddies 'nigger'  so how come it is offensive for a white person to say it ?  and how the hell do you explain that to a child who is wondering why he shouldn't use that word and yet hears it in a lot of music?

thoughts....anyone?

Nigger is a word used by white or other non-blacks as a hostile term of abuse or contempt.

American rappers say 'nigga'.

[bucephalus]

i never got the spaz, queer, nigger / nigga thing.  I simply don't use them because i don't want to hear them.   i understand that no term can be offensive if it's used affectionately but, for the sake of practicality, i think would be better if people just looked for different words

[edit] Norwegians exempt of course due to their apparent lack of alternatives!

[bodie]

Whatever word is used could offend somebody.

[Adam]

watching the liverpool game. fucking suarez is disggraceful. the fuckling CUNT

[Émile Armand]

That nigger Suárez.