The 'N word' briefly revisited

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0618197176.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V45473211_AA240_.jpg

Saw Asim on Colbert the other night.

Fascinating.

Gonna suggest the library order a copy or two.

The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why

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Here's another you might find interesting...

nigger
The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word

by Randall Kennedy

Are you planning on reading the Asim book?

What was fascinating to you about the Colbert appearance?

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snood wrote:

Are you planning on reading the Asim book?

That'd be the idea behind the library order request.

~~~

Not everybody can hold their own with Colbert. I don't watch him often, but more often than not when I do watch, he's got someone flustered. Asim was easily as funny as Colbert - and matched him note for note. It's always fun to watch a 'duel' like that.

I guess the 'fascinating' was sort of my wish that I could have watched someone who doesn't "get" Colbert watching that interview. Perhaps a bit of head-spinning would have ensued.

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Because that word appears several times in it, Stienbeck's Of Mice And Men is no longer being read in Houston's schools, as of this week.

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I haven't read through this entire thread, but did anyone mention Dick Gregory? Damn, that man was funny.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.
Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, "We don't serve colored people here." I said, "That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken."
Then these three white boys came up to me and said, "Boy, we're givin' you fair warnin'. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you." So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, "Line up, boys!"

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jimthing/nigger.jpg

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Dick Gregory spoke at my sister's high school graduation. Amazing and unforgetable.

And I've completely forgotten who spoke at mine.

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Never liked Dick Gregory.

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very first time I heard/saw the word "nigger" was when I was 23 years old and went to Houston Texas to attend University of Houston.

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It's the one bad word that was never heard in my home as a child. I'm still perplexed. Those who know my history will understand why.

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Why perplexed, edgar?

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I hadn't seen this thread before, just read the whole thing. Gives me some background.

I've met or been within ten feet of three of the people in the Chris Rock film, and know others by repute, like Cornell West. Will put it in my netflix cue.

I suppose I'm an offender, having mentioned that my niece is black. Is that tantamount to "some of my best friends are..."? Her life is rich for her heritage and affected by outside forces because of it. I prefer not to be quiet on these matters if I have the occasional thing to say.

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Naw, Osso - if I may be so bold as to say - I personally wouldn't take your mentioning your niece as a "one of my best friends" type remark. It's sort of a body of awareness I get from reading you for years here - I just don't see you as trying to slide that kind of stuff by...

I think Cornell West is beyond brilliant. I would give my eyeteeth to take any class with that man as professor.

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snood wrote:

Why perplexed, edgar?

My step father was so ignorant and hateful, one would expect him to be a flaming racist, but, he wasn't. He used certain terminology for Mexicans, in times of anger, but his best friend was Mexican. He liked that guy enough to name a son for him. He expressed dislike for Armenians, of which there were quite a few in Fresno, CA. But not one word disparaging black people.

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My sister called me today. Her fiance is a country boy, hangs sheet rock.

So the other day one of his buddies took one of the other guys on the crew to look at a car that's for sale. They drove down some back roads, dirt flyin' behind em and after about thirty minutes arrived at their destination. There in front of them, just outside of a run down shack with a delapidated porch and odd and end pieces of machinery layin everywhere sat a red rag top from some year long gone by. The fella that come to look at the car sat up straight with interest and said "What the heck ya think he's asking for it?"

The driver said he didn't know that he'd have to go knock on the door.

So he did.

A few minutes later a black fella that had to be a hundred years old threw the door open and in a gravely low voice said, "Ya get on outta here, ya white trash."

The fella at the door was stunned. He didn't know what to say but as he opened his mouth the old black man said again, "Ya get on outta here, ya white trash."

He turned and went back to the truck.

The driver was doubled over laughing. Tears were streaming down his face.

As he opened the door to get in, the fella has a sudden realization... "You's out here yesterdee askin' bout that car, won't ya?"

"Yep."

(I love when the tables are turned. Really threw them off. And, that's exactly the kind of old man I'd love to sit on the porch with... Ya know he's got stories.)

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from Paul Krugman's blog...

Quote:

Third, I'm surprised that Jon doesn't talk at all about the key political role of race in the political shift in this country. Reagan didn't start as a supply-sider: he started as the enemy of welfare queens in their welfare Cadillacs. And what I've learned from Larry Bartels, Tom Schaller, and other political scientists is that race is really central to the whole thing. Here's a preview quote from my own book:

"The overwhelming importance of the Southern switch suggests an almost embarrassingly simple story about the political success of movement conservatism. It goes like this: thanks to their organization, the interlocking institutions that constitute the reality of the vast right-wing conspiracy, movement conservatives were able to take over the Republican Party, and move its domestic policies sharply to the right. In most of the country, this rightward shift alienated voters, who gradually moved toward the Democrats. But Republicans were nonetheless able to win presidential elections, and eventually gain control of Congress, because they were able to exploit the race issue to win political dominance of the South. End of story."

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/bookclub/2007/sep/11/crank_politics

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blatham wrote:

from Paul Krugman's blog...

Quote:
Third, I'm surprised that Jon doesn't talk at all about the key political role of race in the political shift in this country. Reagan didn't start as a supply-sider: he started as the enemy of welfare queens in their welfare Cadillacs. And what I've learned from Larry Bartels, Tom Schaller, and other political scientists is that race is really central to the whole thing. Here's a preview quote from my own book:

"The overwhelming importance of the Southern switch suggests an almost embarrassingly simple story about the political success of movement conservatism. It goes like this: thanks to their organization, the interlocking institutions that constitute the reality of the vast right-wing conspiracy, movement conservatives were able to take over the Republican Party, and move its domestic policies sharply to the right. In most of the country, this rightward shift alienated voters, who gradually moved toward the Democrats. But Republicans were nonetheless able to win presidential elections, and eventually gain control of Congress, because they were able to exploit the race issue to win political dominance of the South. End of story."
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/bookclub/2007/sep/11/crank_politics

Yep.

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The 'N word' briefly revisited

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