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Schrödinger's slur:
Someone says the n-word behind you (singing along to a rap song). Until you turn around and identify their race, they're both spewing ugly racism AND righteously reclaiming a slur. Until you know the source, it's good and evil at the same time.
1/5
Someone says the n-word behind you (singing along to a rap song). Until you turn around and identify their race, they're both spewing ugly racism AND righteously reclaiming a slur. Until you know the source, it's good and evil at the same time.
1/5
This is the bizarre nature of the n-word taboo. As a white liberal, I'm not even going to use it in a pseudonymous tweet. It's seen as so harmful that a young girl lost out on her chosen college because she said the word at age 15.
2/5 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
2/5 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Yet it's used constantly in casual conversation or in incredibly popular music. I hear it at my poker game every week (from Asian and Hispanic players only, not from Black players). I hear it on the street as I walk through Harlem.
3/5
3/5
@JohnHMcWhorter puts it well: "The N-word is a slur...sparing usage and serious caution are warranted. Respect, nevertheless, has morphed into a kind of genuflection that an outsider might find difficult to understand."
4/5 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/whites-refer-to-the-n-word/596872/
4/5 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/whites-refer-to-the-n-word/596872/
Taboos, like avoiding the n-word, are hard to talk about reasonably precisely because they are taboos. They have the aura of religion, of the sacred and the profane. Not using racist slurs as slurs is a good thing. Creating a religious aura around a particular slur is not.
5/5
5/5
