Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Banning the “N” Word

This brings up an interesting point.

The city council of New York has voted to ban the use of the word “n[censored by Owen]”.

The resolution to ban the so-called “N-word” is largely symbolic as it carries no weight in law and those who use the word would face no punishment.

But it reflects a growing unease that the racial slur is now part of everyday conversation and that the taboo against its usage has been swept away.

The word is in common usage among sections of the younger generation in the United States.

In the past several decades, America’s various governments have been increasingly regulating speech.  There are words that can’t be used in the broadcast media.  There are words that can’t be said in certain contexts within striking distance of an election.  There are even words that will get you a harsher sentence if you say them during the commission of a crime. 

But in this case, we have a government outright banning a word from being used by anyone, anytime, anywhere.  Granted, it doesn’t carry a penalty, but the principle is set.  It’s a short distance to criminalizing a word.  Is this acceptable?

Frankly, I think it is appalling that we have reached a point where not only do our elected officials think it is within their purvey to use the levers of government to regulate speech, but that the America people let them.

(3) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1914 hrs
Culture + Law + Politics + Politics - General

  1. We reached that point when we let gov’t censor four letter words.  This is nothing new.  Some people are offended by the ‘f’ word, some by the ‘n’ word.  neither are right; neither are wrong. What to do?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 28, 2007 at 2006 hrs


  2. The vast majority of the time, when I hear that word, it is being used to identify and describe the person who is saying it. Usually it is booming out of the ride of a person who identifies with that usage. Any such law would have to be applied evenly or it would amount to a civil rights violation.

    Posted by triticale on February 28, 2007 at 2103 hrs


  3. I am curious why terms like redneck and cracker and whitey are not censored. Oh wait I know. It is because those of us that the terms apply to are too busy with things like work and family and do not attention to the less than important dregs of society. We tend to have our time taken up by things that do not focus on the silly. Unfortunately, the govt does not understand that they too have more important things to worry about. How about they try to figure out how to spend less of our money instead of trying to turn us into communist russia. We are not there yet, but if it is illegal, albeit not punishable, then how long before there are reeducation camps. Oh wait we have those now. We call them PC courses.

    Posted by fishaddict on March 01, 2007 at 1254 hrs


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