John and I have talked extensively about the distinction between “using” and “referring” to the word “nigger.” It’s repugnant to hurl a racial epithet in order to demean someone, but there’s nothing wrong with uttering an epithet for the purposes of illustration or analysis. Now, it seems, the taboo against uttering racial slurs extends even to terms that were, in their time, markers of dignity, like “Negro.” In this clip from our most recent Q&A session, John and I talk about the sad power play behind this ever-expanding list of verboten terms.
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An equally good clip from Coleman Hughes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB7fChcEyd8
In 1946, Martin Luther King Jr quit his summer job after a white foreman called him nigger. Was King Woke?
https://books.google.com/books?id=TU_hEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PT40&dq=King,+Jr.,+quits+his+job+as+a+laborer+at+the+Atlanta+Railway+Express+Company+when+a+white+foreman+calls+him+%E2%80%9Cnigger.%E2%80%9D&hl=en&source=gb_mobile_entity
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-quits-job-atlanta-railway-express-company
MLK called Andrew Young L’il Nigger
https://www.cnn.com/2014/01/19/us/king-speeches-never-heard/index.html
I’m laughing at the Conservatives who pout about Blacks objecting to whites using the term.