Mock funeral to 'bury' offensive words

[MissusDe]

Decades have passed since the mass marches of the civil rights and women's lib movements. But it's still common to hear chart-topping songs that contain casual but offensive terms for African Americans and women.

Rap and hip-hop artists are often the culprits, and now members of the NAACP hope to send a strong message: Enough is enough.

As part of a nationwide campaign to end the use of offensive terms and the objectification of women in songs and music videos, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to hold a "mock funeral" for the word "nigger" on Monday during its annual convention in Detroit.

In the Puget Sound area, NAACP chapters are urging people to wear black ribbons Monday to show solidarity with the campaign to "bury" the word. The campaign also urges people to stop using the terms "bitch" and "ho" to refer to women.

Some hip-hop fans have argued it's acceptable for African-Americans to use the n-word casually and that doing so could strip it of its power to hurt. Others, such as longtime Seattle civil rights activist Oscar Eason Jr., strongly disagree.

"It was meant to degrade you, to put a certain amount of fear into the conversation," said Eason, who serves as president of the NAACP Alaska/Oregon/Washington State Conference. "And to have our kids to use it like this ... it's frustrating."

The "funeral" comes just months after high-profile instances of celebrities using the terms prompted public outrage. In November, former "Seinfeld" actor Michael Richards used the n-word repeatedly during a tirade against a patron at a Los Angeles comedy club. And in April, radio shock jock Don Imus referred to members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy headed hos."

Imus was ultimately fired.

After the Imus controversy, more and more voices called on popular hip-hop artists to stop using the words.

Eason hopes the funeral will help younger African Americans -- who may never have had it used against them as a slur -- rethink their use of the word in the future.

"We're constantly trying to get that word erased from people's vocabulary," he said.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/322507_nword05.html

[Michael Tee]

The word's become neutral since it was picked up by young blacks and especially black artists.  At this point, the significance of the word and whether or not it's offensive depends on who's using it and what it's being used for.

[Universe Prince]

The word's become neutral since it was picked up by young blacks and especially black artists.  At this point, the significance of the word and whether or not it's offensive depends on who's using it and what it's being used for.

I understand the "what it's being used for" part. That makes sense. What I don't understand is the "who's using it" part. That makes no sense. Words do not inherently change meaning based on the person using the word. How a person uses a word can alter the meaning, but simply being used by a person does not in and of itself change the meaning or significance of a word. The notion that somehow the meaning of a word depends on, in this case, the skin color of the person using it is an absurdity and a hypocrisy.

[gipper]

It is neither an absurdity nor that overused collection-basket of political pseudo-discourse, an hypocrisy. It is perfectly fair game, rational and perhaps even efficacious to wield a "tyranny of the word" by those formerly (and perhaps currently) afflicted by its use against that broad class of people (note "class," not individuals) who inflicted harm by hostile use of the word. It's just plain, raw, power politics, and it is on a matter that has very little capacity to harm seriously in the recoil blacks wish to create. To see the matter otherwise is simply tight-assed, small-minded.

[Michael Tee]

<<Words do not inherently change meaning based on the person using the word.>>

Words can acquire deeply personal meanings shared by only two or three people or larger sub-groups, like black hipsters in San Francisco (to pick just one example from the top of my head.)  "Rosebud" for example.  Didn't have the same meaning for you and me as it did for William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies.  "Gas" might have meant one thing on the lips of a black hipster and something entirely different on my lips.

Words are ony symbols and need to be interpreted in context.  The speaker for sure is part of the context.  So is the listener.  "Nigger" WILL mean one thing coming from Dr. Dre and another coming from Trent Lott.

[MissusDe]

Words are ony symbols and need to be interpreted in context.  The speaker for sure is part of the context.  So is the listener.  "Nigger" WILL mean one thing coming from Dr. Dre and another coming from Trent Lott.

'Bitch' and 'ho' are derogatory terms, no matter who uses them.  And the saddest part is that young women have accepted their usage.

So what came first - the usage of those terms by almost every hip hop and rap artist, or the behavior of young black women?

A crowd of rowdy young men enter a mansion that?s staffed by an army of voluptuous, thonged and bikinied women. They shake and pop and gyrate, bend over and spread their charms, take it from behind and get busy with each other. The guys haul them around like sides of meat, pulling their legs apart and shoving their asses toward the camera. But it?s cool: the girls are smiling because these boys have plenty of cash, and that makes it all right. The bills shower down on female flesh, along with champagne?and whatever else might be flowing. The climax to this conjoining of sex and money? A grinning man swipes a credit card between a girl?s ripe buttocks.

That?s pretty tame porn, you might say, and you?d be right?but it?s not porn; at least it?s not marketed as such. It?s the video for rapper Nelly?s hit ?Tip Drill,? which has been beamed into millions of U.S. households via cable?s BET network, along with other rap videos in the same vein. Networks like MTV and VH1 show them, too. The ?Tip Drill? video leads the pack in raunchiness, but only narrowly, and its lyrics are mild compared to some.

Read The Bitch Ho Problem:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2007/04/05/The_Bitch_Ho_Problem/index.shtml

[Michael Tee]

Bitch and Ho can be derogatory words.  They don't have to be.  A guy can call his girlfriend bitch, and she might think it's funny.  They could be two white suburban kids pretending to be part of the gangsta subculture.  They could be two black kids who aren't really gangsta.  They could be Chinese kids who think it's cool.  They could be actors in a movie about really bad people.

The varieties of context are infinite but the context DOES determine the meaning. 

The video you described sounds funny.  Like they're doing it for laughs.  I can't see any harm done.  Very few girls have the looks required to get them into the kind of situation depicted, and of those who do, some will find their own way there regardless of what's banned or allowed and others won't have any interest in that kind of environment anyway.  Probably depends a lot on upbringing.

[Plane]

I was brought up to avoid being uselessly offensive.

In the Navy one can be severely disaplined for useing such "flag words" as a Civil Servant one can be fired.

Who really is paying the way for the popular use of offensive words in art?

[Universe Prince]

It is perfectly fair game, rational and perhaps even efficacious to wield a "tyranny of the word" by those formerly (and perhaps currently) afflicted by its use against that broad class of people (note "class," not individuals) who inflicted harm by hostile use of the word. It's just plain, raw, power politics, and it is on a matter that has very little capacity to harm seriously in the recoil blacks wish to create.

Nonsense. There is nothing rational about it. And it is only efficacious is the desired result is to have black people using it in a derogatory manner toward each other. And apparently the leadership of the NAACP has an opinion more in line with my thinking than yours. So I feel certain that you have zero grounds upon which to talk about the matter as if this "tyranny of the word" had some unified decision behind it.

To see the matter otherwise is simply tight-assed, small-minded.

On the contrary, to see the matter as I do is broad-minded and rational. It shows some rational and adult consideration of the whole of the matter rather than a myopic, emotional, childish reaction.

[Universe Prince]

Words can acquire deeply personal meanings shared by only two or three people or larger sub-groups, like black hipsters in San Francisco (to pick just one example from the top of my head.)  "Rosebud" for example.  Didn't have the same meaning for you and me as it did for William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies.  "Gas" might have meant one thing on the lips of a black hipster and something entirely different on my lips.

The meanings you speak of were acquired by use not by merely being spoken by a person. Which only illustrates my point.

[Michael Tee]

<<The meanings you speak of were acquired by use not by merely being spoken by a person. Which only illustrates my point.>>

Now you're talking about something else, acquisition of meaning.  I was talking about meaning in the context of speaker identity.

Once the word has acquired its special or non-standard meaning in the course of a particular relation between (for example) two people, thereafter the word has its special meaning only when spoken by one of those two people to another.

Of course there is no reason to limit to two the number of people who can share in the special or specially nuanced meaning of a word.

[Universe Prince]

Now you're talking about something else, acquisition of meaning.  I was talking about meaning in the context of speaker identity.

I'm talking about the same thing I've been talking about. Your examples were of people who added to or altered the meaning of a word by how they used it. The meaning of 'rosebud' was not changed because it was physically formed by Hearst's throat and mouth. The meaning of the word 'nigger' is not changed by the color of the skin of the person who speaks it.

[sirs]

Now you're talking about something else, acquisition of meaning.  I was talking about meaning in the context of speaker identity.

I'm talking about the same thing I've been talking about. Your examples were of people who added to or altered the meaning of a word by how they used it. The meaning of 'rosebud' was not changed because it was physically formed by Hearst's throat and mouth. The meaning of the word 'nigger' is not changed by the color of the skin of the person who speaks it.

I have yet to see in ANY dictionary 'nigger' as anything other than an EGREGIOUSLY NEGATIVE & INFLAMMATORY term, specifically referencing a black person.  Perhaps Tee is again using some dictionary from his alternate reality, and trying to apply it to this one

[kimba1]

uhm
the n-word hads too many truely ASSUMED rules
if we follows all the rules and the history behind it
doesn`t it mean non-american whites have the right to say that word and african americans should not be offended by it?
alot of european countries had no african slaves.
infact shouldn`t the irish be able to say that word
they didn`t exactly have superior standing at that time period
and money was exchanged for the service of irish folks in america
the 7 year contract was due to the fact very few live past 7 years

[Richpo64]

I certainly understand the intent here, but no one, and I mean no one can tell me what words I can and cannot use.

Slippery slope my friends ... slippery slope.