Will Anyone Get It Right About Using the N-Word?

    Of course it's just my opinion, my sense of 'right', but it seems to just make so much sense; if you don't make a big deal about something, no one can use it to hurt you anymore! Instead, it's 'that group shouldn't use that word' and 'it's okay for that group to use this word'.. To my way of thinking, either NO ONE uses it, or EVERYONE does! How does it make sense to anyone that a person from one group can say a particular word and not only not get lambasted for it but there are people defending its usage, but another group says it and not only are there loud complaints but this person stands to lose their job, their career, and their standing in their community? Come on people, this is A WORD; a 2 dimensional word formed from tiles on a Scrabble board for goodness sakes! Something that you can just as easily make disappear by just a wave of your hand across the board. It means no more than that, unless you allow it to.  Of course, everyone has their own opinion:

The Pledge: Never use the n-word again

From the Clarion-Ledger.com May 10, 2010 

 

 

 Myrlie Evers-Williams knows the pain of the n-word.She heard it hurled many times in hate at her husband, Medgar Evers, before a Klansman shot him in the back on June 12, 1963. She and her three children ran outside to see him gasping and covered in blood before he died.   

     Her husband’s killer, Byron De La Beckwith, walked free in 1964. Thirty years later, Beckwith went on trial again. Several witnesses testified that Beckwith bragged to them later about killing "that n-----," Medgar Evers. This time, a jury convicted Beckwith, and he was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2001.

      Some white Americans use the racial epithet, but it's African Americans' use of the word that bothers Evers-Williams more. 

"They don't realize the historical shame of that word," she said. "It is not some term to toss to a buddy of yours." Some young African-African {sic} men have told her they use the n-word among themselves, said the 77-year-old chairman emeritus of the national NAACP. "They say, 'Well, I call my brother that. It's a loving term.' "

"That's no loving term — not unless you are ready to fight. For those of our generation, it is the most unpalatable word you can say."

      Even though the word has been popularized in some songs, African Americans should never speak the word, she said. "That bothers me more than a Caucasian using it. It is racist. It is hateful. It is everything it was meant to be." She challenged all Americans to stop using the n-word.