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The "N" Word and the Law

Mike

Well-known member
Texas Mayor Singles Out N-Word for Ban

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

By Sara Bonisteel


It's one of the most reviled words in the English language, but if one Texas mayor gets his way, getting caught uttering the "N-word" will hit offenders where it hurts.

Mayor Ken Corley of Brazoria, Texas, has proposed a city ordinance that would make using the word in an offensive fashion a crime equal to disturbing the peace and punishable by a fine of up to $500.

"I would like to, if possible, ban all racial slurs," Corley told FOXNews.com. "We chose this word because it's the most controversial issue throughout the United States today."

Corley said the city would like to go after the use of other racial slurs, "but we want to take this one step at a time, depending on public opinion."

Speakout! What do you think of the N-word ordinance?

The 62-year-old mayor, who is a self-described "middle-class white boy," got the idea for the ordinance after watching Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton discuss banning the N-word on TV after "Seinfeld" comedian Michael Richards used it in an act last November.

"The word is not used or abused in the streets of our town; it's more, amongst the black community, as a term of endearment, OK?" Corley said. "But it is a national issue, and I would like the city of Brazoria to take a leadership role throughout the nation in banning the use of this word."

Corley polled his constituents and found "overwhelming support" for the ordinance. Brazoria, with a population of around 2,800, is an industrial city nestled about 50 miles south of Houston near the Gulf of Mexico coast. About 10 percent of the population is black.

Under the proposed Brazoria ordinance, users of the N-word would be fined only if a complaint were filed against them, thus protecting those who think they are using the word as a term of endearment.

Bishop Ricky Jones, a black minister and the head of the Living Word Fellowship Christian Center in Brazoria, "wholeheartedly" supports the ordinance and the mayor, though he doesn't agree with the "term of endearment" loophole.

"It's trying to be made a term of endearment in the black community, the way it has been used so loosely, but I for one, when I look at that word and look at the history of it, it has been used to demonize, demoralize and degrade black people as a whole."

Jabari Asim, a deputy editor at the Washington Post and author of the forthcoming book "The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't and Why," has traced the American arrival of the word to 1619 when a Jamestown, Va., diarist, John Rolfe, noted: "We got 20 niggers today on a Dutch man-of-war."

"That's the first recorded instance of African captives arriving to British North America and that was the word used to describe them," Asim said.

Over the last 25 years, the hip-hop community has sprinkled the word throughout its anthems.

"It's really important for people to realize that the history of the word goes so far back that recent developments in the past 20 years [of] casual use," Asim said. "There is no god higher than history and I don't think recent developments are strong enough to overcome the centuries of hatred that are attached to the word."

Brazoria's proposed ordinance is the first time an American city has tried to ban the word, though groups such as Abolish the "N" Word have lobbied for its permanent retirement, Asim said.

"Calling for societal change is one thing, but calling for legislation against speech is quite another," he said. "That's practically anti-American to say that we're going to allow the government and Uncle Sam determine how we speak to one another. It's counterintuitive to me. It's best to lead by example than by legislation."

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a senior legal analyst for FOX News, agrees.

"This is government trying to take the easy way out," he said. "When people use words that are harmful, they lack civility and they lack education, but they don't lack the right to say it."

Napolitano doubts the ordinance will stand up in a court of law.

"You can't just pick a word because then you're granting more protection to the victims of that word than you are to victims of other words, so you really open up a Pandora's box," Napolitano said.

The ordinance is on shaky ground legally because of a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision, R.A.V. vs. the City of St. Paul, said David Hudson, a First Amendment scholar at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn.

"Fighting words are not protected by the First Amendment, and a lot of fighting words are face to face personal insults," Hudson said. "But in 1992, in this case, the court held that selective banning of fighting words, in other words, singly out, for instance, fighting words based on race and sex, that that constituted viewpoint discrimination and violated the First Amendment.

"It's a well-intentioned effort, but it's a well-intentioned unconstitutional effort," Hudson said.

Corley said that while he has "some concerns" about the law's legal standing, the city attorney is confident it will pass muster.

A public hearing will be held Thursday, before the five-member city council decides on whether to pursue the measure. Last year, it was the first city in Texas to pass a sex-offender ordinance.
 

Judith

Well-known member
What's a cracker? I thought I was up on my racial slurs.

This is getting silly if we have to ban the N word we will just start banning all sorts! I can make a dirty word out of the cleanest words in the dictionary! I'm sure that others can use this talent to make racial slurs. Soon we will not be able to speak. Besides the black community use the N work as a term of endearment........So we can't call each other sweety and muffin anymore? :p
 

jigs

Well-known member
blacks try to use cracker the same way we use nigger.

only we don't go around calling out to our buddies " hey cracker"
or when questioning a pal " cracker, what??"

I feel bad using the word, but it is something we were brought up around here, and never having any colored people around it was no big deal....now there are a few around and I try to watch myself. but before I die, I have one wish, and that is to walk up to Jessie Jackson,.look him in the eye and tell him he is one worthless nigger.

then I can die happy!
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
I would support the fine, just think of all the revenue that would be generated in the Black communities. We would have to hire new officers just to right the fines.

But then we would have lawsuits because of racial profiling, seeing how the cops would be staking out the hood to catch all the law breakers. :lol:
 

Mike

Well-known member
What I find extra ridiculous about this article is that they are gonna fine people $500 bucks for saying the word nigger.

But on the other hand they are gonna give the ones a pass for using it as a term of endearment.

Doesn't anyone else see this as ironic? :???:

Think about it!!!!!!!!
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Mike said:
What I find extra ridiculous about this article is that they are gonna fine people $500 bucks for saying the word nigger.

But on the other hand they are gonna give the ones a pass for using it as a term of endearment.

Doesn't anyone else see this as ironic? :???:

Think about it!!!!!!!!

Guess I should read the whole thing, there goes my theory of making some money off the Homeys. :(

But then again I bet when they say it as they shoot at each other over their turf, that they are being endearing, so maybe there still is a little pocket change to be made here. :lol:
 

jigs

Well-known member
is this mayor up for re-election and has realized who is the voting majority in this town???

perhaps he can get John Kerry and his fake purple heart to show up and claim the enemy called him a nigger as they shot him in the war he later called illegal.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
jigs said:
is this mayor up for re-election and has realized who is the voting majority in this town???

perhaps he can get John Kerry and his fake purple heart to show up and claim the enemy called him a nigger as they shot him in the war he later called illegal.

Hard to believe it is a Texas Mayor pushing this issue, did not know there was any Liberal districts in Texas. Is he a sandbagger from Massachusetts or something?

Bet he ends up with some burnt crosses in his front yard over this one.
 

schnurrbart

Well-known member
jigs said:
blacks try to use cracker the same way we use nigger.

only we don't go around calling out to our buddies " hey cracker"
or when questioning a pal " cracker, what??"

I feel bad using the word, but it is something we were brought up around here, and never having any colored people around it was no big deal....now there are a few around and I try to watch myself. but before I die, I have one wish, and that is to walk up to Jessie Jackson,.look him in the eye and tell him he is one worthless nigger.

then I can die happy!

You probably would--right then!!
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
CattleArmy said:
This is an appropriate word for this site???
I think I've been in trouble for implying words before lol or i said it something like that. Just shocked this word is being so freely used.
 

jigs

Well-known member
CattleArmy said:
CattleArmy said:
This is an appropriate word for this site???
I think I've been in trouble for implying words before lol or i said it something like that. Just shocked this word is being so freely used.

the point to remember when carelessly throwing around the word, is there are white niggers also.... when I use it, I am referring to gang bangers, and guys like Jessie and Al ( and Bill Clinton)....the bottom of the barrel type people
 

schnurrbart

Well-known member
CattleArmy said:
CattleArmy said:
This is an appropriate word for this site???
I think I've been in trouble for implying words before lol or i said it something like that. Just shocked this word is being so freely used.

My home town never had any black residents until just a few years ago. I have heard but don't know that back in the early 1900s there was a "black college" on the outskirts of town which was burned one night and all run out of town. So I grew up without much interaction until high school and then only through competing against other towns in athletic events. When I was 17 my parents and I and my 3 or 4 year old neice were traveling by car to Detroit. This was before interstate highways. We were in Indianapolis at a stop light. A car with a middle aged black man pulled up beside us and my neice said, in a very loud voice; "Look, Mama Jenny(my mother), a "niggero"." My mother would have died and gone up in a puff of smoke had she been able to but the guy just laughed out loud and waved at the little blond white girl. My parents never used that word that I ever heard but she had obviously heard both Negro and "nigger" from somewhere. Out of the mouths of....
 
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