...I have a question for those board members who say white people should never use the word.
Speaking only for myself, here's what I posted earlier:
"There is no way a white person can use that word in conversation and have it not be offensive. There seems to be an unwritten rule, or code that (probably because of its origins), whites just can't say it."
Meaning...using the word in conversation
directed at someone else. And maybe instead of 'can't say it' (for those who are going to nitpick every word)...the phrase should be that whites are not
expected to say it without raising a few eyebrows and/or getting into a bit of trouble.
... Am I really expected to say "the n-word" instead of "ni**er" when discussing something like its use in Huck Finn? ... If I'm tell a friend about a discussion I overheard where one man called another a "ni**er", why do I have censor the word?
Of course not, where are you getting that you have to 'censor' anything?
All of us are free to use the word if we like, and whenever we like...many of us are simply uncomfortable saying it.
My father, unfortunately, had absolutely NO PROBLEM using the entire word, in a very derogatory tone...when referring to
any black person, from Bernie Williams whenever he struck out, to any regular guy standing at a bus stop or shopping in a store that he didn't even know. This is because he was an ignorant bigot (RIP). (My mother always SWORE he was not like this when they were younger & first married.) While we all became accustomed to it and knew he would never change, we were always quite disgusted when he did say it.
When referring to literature, Huck Finn etc.? Again, nobody's forbidding anyone to say it if you feel like using the whole word and you're comfortable doing so then go ahead who's stopping you?
Most who have responded are trying to convey how THEY FEEL PERSONALLY about the word and its history and its use.
(Interesting observation: You can see the entire word while responding via 'QUOTE' or when editing a post. Yet once submitted it goes back to censored '**' version for all the Board to see.)
