Good News For African-Americans

lumbingmi

lumbingmi

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Stomping the N-Word

The very mention of the word sends Jennifer Lowery-Bell's mind spinning back to a painful time.

"That word reminds me of lynchings and black men disappearing in the night and all of the dehumanizing things that used to happen to African Americans," said Lowery-Bell, 59, a black woman raised in the South. "I think no one should ever use that word. I think it should be against the law."



Jennifer Lowery-Bell wrote to her governor, county executive and County Council. (By James A. Parcell For The Washington Post)

Long before music mogul Russell Simmons called on the recording industry last week to strike the N-word, Lowery-Bell of Largo wrote her governor, her county executive and her County Council member, asking them to help ban the six-letter racial slur. She's part of an upsurge of popular sentiment against the word, not only in the entertainment industry but in churches, schools and city halls.

The Rev. Grainger Browning of Ebenezer A.M.E. Church in Fort Washington has been urging his members to stop using it. Students at the historically black Bowie State University banished the word from two dorms and started charging those who use it $25 fines.

Nationally, the NAACP held a symbolic funeral for the word two weeks ago, part of its Stop Campaign to strike such language from the lexicon. The publisher of black magazines Ebony and Jet ordered writers late last year to stop using the word. The New York City Council passed a resolution in February asking residents to refrain from using the word. And tiny Brazoria in southeastern Texas tried unsuccessfully to pass an ordinance leveling $500 fines for uttering the word.

During deliberations there, black residents protested the proposed ban more vigorously than their white neighbors, Mayor Kenneth Corley said.

"When whites use it, they use it to hurt," said Corley, who is white. "When the black community uses it, they disrespect themselves."

His experience touches on the central paradox of the campaign to excise the N-word from common usage: The effort is aimed not just at shutting down racists, shock jocks and supremacists. It's also aimed at educating African Americans, many of them born after the civil rights era, who have adopted the word as an endearment.

There is a difference, said Leonard Young, 19, of Fort Washington: Racists end the word with an "er," African Americans end it with an "a."

"I don't think it's offensive," said Young, a black computer science major at Prince George's Community College. "It hasn't been offensive since slavery. It's only offensive when people of other races use it."

The movement to ban the word picked up momentum last year after actor Michael Richards's racist rant toward black patrons in a Los Angeles comedy club. It got another boost this month when shock jock Don Imus referred to the predominantly African American Rutgers University women's basketball team in racially loaded terms.

The fallout from Imus's comments led to the axing of his show on MSNBC and CBS Radio and prompted music mogul Simmons to call on recording artists to stop using the N-word, "bitch" and "ho" in versions of songs played on the radio and in music videos.

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Stomping the N-Word - washingtonpost.com
 
Should we follow this example for 'Deaf and Dumb' and put anyone in jail who dares to say deaf and dumb in same sentence?
 
I learned something new about this messageboard. There are not that many member here who re not blacks.

Wonder this thread gets more reponse if the word 'n' is sub with 'wt' ? :confused:
 
I would like to see ban words of deaf and dumb and/or hearing impaired.
I hate to see the studios when slated for captioning for the hearing impaired. I wish it is policital incorrect for HI.
I love anyone saying "deaf and hard-of-hearing"! :P
I want they saying the word will be: deaf and hard-of-hearing!
 
CCfan said:
I would like to see ban words of deaf and dumb and/or hearing impaired.
I hate to see the studios when slated for captioning for the hearing impaired. I wish it is policital incorrect for HI.
I love anyone saying "deaf and hard-of-hearing"! :P
I want they saying the word will be: deaf and hard-of-hearing!
Click to expand...

I wld def join your cause :cheers:
 
CCfan said:
I would like to see ban words of deaf and dumb and/or hearing impaired.
I hate to see the studios when slated for captioning for the hearing impaired. I wish it is policital incorrect for HI.
I love anyone saying "deaf and hard-of-hearing"! :P
I want they saying the word will be: deaf and hard-of-hearing!
Click to expand...

I am with u! :thumb:
 
well, yeah that sounds pretty good news to me since I am african-american but those words doesn't get under my skin bec of the past that continuiously brings over the memories/flashbacks. for all I can care is for these people in the world & ourselves simply providing the respectable relationships no matter where we come from.

besides banning "deaf&dumb" or "hearing-impaired"

I do understand why deaf people had taken "deaf&dumb" as offensive because its a insulting.. hearing people didn't know any better.

but.. banning
hearing-impaired
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? that's too ridicuious, that word gave out an PROPER name to replace as "deaf" I had no complains using hearing-impaired, because its already written in hospitals' dictionary. it just incidated on what you have lost. hearing is our loss that we cannot hear or listened. besides this, its better than being said "eye-impaired", right?
 
CCfan said:
I would like to see ban words of deaf and dumb and/or hearing impaired.
I hate to see the studios when slated for captioning for the hearing impaired. I wish it is policital incorrect for HI.
I love anyone saying "deaf and hard-of-hearing"! :P
I want they saying the word will be: deaf and hard-of-hearing!
Click to expand...

Me Second that! ^-^
 
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