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Bad Poetry Night: inspired by Roy.
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Interracial relationships.



Friday, March 31, 2006

Where my head is.

School has been kinda odd this past week. I feel like I'm on top of stuff, and then I realize I have some big thing to do last minute. It's like a stress rollercoaster. I dunno why I'm so disorganized. Spring fever, maybe?
The weather is warming up; my crocuses are blooming, and the daffodils and tulips have broken the surface and their blooms are not far behind. I've had a pretty fabulous few days, with pits of anxiety and highs of warm sunshine. Hopefully the girl who's been hacking up her lungs piece by piece behind me in my First Amendment class isn't contagious. That would suck.

Speaking of that class...
Yesterday, we had almost a whole class on the word "nigger." Seriously. We had to watch a documentary and then discuss whether the word should be banned from television since it's not currently. The whole class is white, by the way, with one exception. Personally, I can't imagine how uncomfortable it must have been to be that one black guy on that particular day.
We broke into two groups and discussed the matter. I was the discussion leader in my group and took notes on what we talked about. The question of whether it was okay for one group of people to say the word and not another group came up. In terms of the law, I said that any regulation attempting to bar one race from the rights of another would fall under suspect classification and be subject to strict scrutiny. One person disagreed. Guess who?
Also, in the documentary we watched, one man was asked why black people use the term when white people's use of it is so abhorrent, and this was the response, "I say it because I know white people say it behind my back."
Um, WTF? Seriously? Is it me, or does that seem a little racist? Maybe it's the part of the country I live in, but I've never heard anyone say that word in real life. Black or white.

edit: I am reminded that I have indeed heard the word used irl by the husband of a friend who lives in the south. I was shocked, which he apparently thought was funny and assured me that his black friends don't mind him saying that word. Um, okay. Totally different part of the country, so what do I know?
posted by hilary at 11:27 AM |

4 Comments:

Blogger Blue said...

Really? Wow! I've definitely heard the word used in real life, but I HATE that word!

3/31/2006 1:01 PM  
Blogger Kurticus Maximus said...

I have heard white people use that word in jokes (very rarely though), and I've heard white kids using it while hanging out with black friends.

I have only heard one white person use it in normal conversation though, and he's from Tennessee. When the rest of us asked him not to use that particular term, he claimed it "Part of his culture, whether he liked it or not." I thought that was a pretty lousy excuse.

3/31/2006 4:16 PM  
Anonymous daisy said...

I teach a high school class that talks about race, culture, gender, etc., and we talk about this issue. The analogy I've used is that some girls (I never would! But some girls do) call their friends "bitches" just for fun. But obviously that word is not okay for guys to call them. And I've also heard a black person say that when they use it it's like taking away the power that it had when white people used it towards them. But most people (black or white) that I talk to say it shouldn't be used anyhow. Which is how I feel about bitch, too! :)

4/08/2006 6:56 PM  
Blogger Roy said...

"Um, WTF? Seriously? Is it me, or does that seem a little racist?"

I've thought about this kind of thing as well, but you're forgetting that it's okay to be racist to whitey, but heaven help you if you say anything bad about anyone else.

4/09/2006 1:22 PM  

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