Burying The N-Word
NAACP Symbolically Buries Racist Word During Public Ceremony In Detroit
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NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called on the entertainment industry and the American public to stop using the N-word and other racial slurs during a speech at the civil rights group's annual convention in Detroit, Sunday, July 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
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Hundreds of onlookers cheered Monday afternoon as the NAACP put to rest a long-standing symbol of racism by holding a public burial for the N-word during its annual convention in Detroit.
"Today we're not just burying the N-word, we're taking it out of our spirit," said Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. "We gather burying all the things that go with the N-word. We have to bury the pimps and the hos that go with it."
"Die N-word, and we don't want to see you round here no more."
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People delegates from across the country gathered at downtown's Cobo Center and marched about a quarter-mile to Hart Plaza for a ceremony and rally.
Along the way, two Percheron horses pulled a pine box on top of which sat a bouquet of fake black roses.
The N-word has been used as a slur against blacks for more than a century. It remains a symbol of racism, but also is used by blacks when referring to other blacks, especially in comedy routines and rap and hip-hop music.
Public discussion on the word's use increased last year following a tirade by "Seinfeld" actor Michael Richards, who used it repeatedly while on stage at a Los Angeles comedy club.
But the issue over racially insensitive remarks heated up earlier this year after talk show host Don Imus used derogatory language to describe black members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
Black leaders, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have challenged the entertainment industry and the American public to stop using the N-word and other racial slurs.
NAACP National Board Chairman Julian Bond repeated the call during the opening address Sunday night for the 98th annual convention, which runs through Thursday.
"While we are happy to have sent a certain radio cowboy back to his ranch, we ought to hold ourselves to the same standard," Bond said. "If he can't refer to our women as `hos,' then we shouldn't either."
The NAACP held a symbolic funeral in Detroit in 1944 for Jim Crow, the systematic, mostly Southern practice of discrimination against and segregation of blacks from the end of post-Civil War reconstruction into the mid-20th century.
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See all 132 CommentsPerhaps they should have buried Cracker and Honky while they were at it so we can ALL get along for a change...
Those evils are not decreased by word-sensitivity, but in fact are increased. The racists among us all have been given this strength by those to sustain the false-power of words. *** did not demolish "queer" by funerals, but by dismantling the stigma. Taking charge of words does not require anger. There is still a common goal.
However, by a process of elimination, if one word-marketing strategy is best to stop bias among groups of people, then the other ought to be criticized. To my knowledge, NAACP has failed to do so.
- To bad the group is itself a big joke.
Millions of cd with songs that youth can hear "N____'s" over and over-
It is now cool and expected to use the word.
NAACP - sorry you came to late to this dance.
Posted by cbscrash07 at 01:49 PM : Jul 09, 2007
I'll tell you....there are words and there are WORDS! I have heard every word blacks use as epithets towards whites, but NON OF THEM carry the same derogatory stature as the "N" word.
It is the ultimate racial put down. Do you hear me out there, you Wiggers? :)
Posted by CrackaFool at 02:04 PM : Jul 09, 2007
Well, when "white folk" use it, like nappy headed ho, they lose their jobs. It's the old double standard....get it? But the time's coming where we're not rolling over anymore.
Posted by infidel_us at 02:05 PM : Jul 09, 2007
In response to this statement, it doesn't carry the same derogatory stature to you. To some of us it may. Like for instance, being beaten by seven different people while they hurled insults such as cracker and honkey at you, it might carry the same derogatory stature. And before anyone says it, I would like to say that nothing was done to provoke this reaction. Just basically someone minding his own business. So don't tell us that because it doesn't bother you, it shouldn't bother anyone. Because then that creates a double standard. As for me personally, I'm for abolishing the use of all words that are racially derogatory.
He wasn't that great. He probably banged more quiff than Bill Clinton has, the difference is, King was supposed to be a minister. Also, he plagerized large portions of his thesis.
Any "cracker" would have had his PhD revoked. But not Dr. K. His words were needed at the time....but they have largely been forgotten and/or rejected by today's afrikan American.
Posted by DaveBeeman at 02:03 PM : Jul 09, 2007
No, the word itself is not bad, but I'd have to disagree with the rest of that statement. The power of the N-word is in the targeted community's continued sensitivity to it. Someone could call me honky all day long, with as much malice, hate and venom as they wanted, and it wouldn't mean a thing. I choose not to give that word any emotional power to hurt me. As a community, Caucasians have largely done the same, hence its virtual disappearance from the vernacular. Its admirable that leaders of the NAACP and other groups are taking steps towards accepting responsibility for the word, but it will never die so long as they continue to allow it to hurt them. Trying to force the word to go away by agreeing not to use it only empowers those who would use it hurt. The day that the N-word is as laughable to blacks as "the H-word" is to whites will be the day we're all free of its awful burden.
Posted by ramos937 at 02:37 PM : Jul 09, 2007
"Do you mine if we dance wiff you dates?" - Animal House, 1978 :)
move beyond the hate that comes with slurs. Isn't it better to simply not identify with a lame word? I could not care less what some stupid idiot calls peole that look like me, I know better, and realize how innane and brainless
those kinds of hate-mongers are. Just ignore the
words that don't fit, and listen for words of encouragement and social reform. When the perpetrators learn that it doesn't cause pain, they will give up, and try something new. That, too will fade if it has no listeners.
Posted by olebd at 02:19 PM : Jul 09, 2007
Really! And all tax free! Jesse was paying all kinds of $$$ to his "ho" in the ATL. You KNOW if some "cracker" purpetrated that scam, the IRS would be all up in his jockstrap.
The old double standard.....alive and well.
Hear, hear, Julian Bond. I hope that Sharpton, Jackson and other activists were listening to your wise advice.
And this goes for the "N-word" as well -- when I see Sharpton et al attack black entertainers with the same ferocity and passion that they went after "a certain radio cowboy", then I'll be convinced that they are serious about stamping out racial epithets, rather than using them as a way to target white celebrities for political gain.
____ ______
_____ ______
______ ______
_______ ______
________ ______
_________ _______
__________ _______
There's only a diagonal line there if you focus on it.
WHAT?!?! You're the leaders! Don't just "challenge" them, DEMAND it! Step up for once and make the changes happen that you have been ranting about. Stop riding the coattails of those who sacrificed their lives and MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
Its a bad word, no matter what color mouth it comes from. But the double standard is causing a resurgence of its use.
I've never used it, I don't hang with people who do, and its time for everyone to get over this dumb word and let it go forever.
Well there you go! Bill Cosby has been saying that stuff for years, and what do the "naggers" say? "Dr. Cosby doesn't speak for black Americans."
Blacks have no role models. They have no "leaders" they can look up to. As with mostly ALL uneducated humans, if left to their own, they will sink to the absolute LOWEST COMMON DENOMONATOR.
Is that not what we see?
I never saw one of them stand in front of a record executive's house like they stood out in front of that man's legitimate business in Chicago a few weeks ago. Have you???
They're making it worse not better.
The N-word will only go away when it finally loses its meaning.
When nobody cares if you say it.
Just call me a "redneck cracker"
I'll just roll my eyes and reply "whatever?.."
Sorta like abortion.
There's no victory in banning abortion.
All just pissin' into the wind.
Victory is when it's still legal and no one shows up to have one.
...such idiots people can be.
Giving it so much credence makes it seem as though it were a real word.
Now hear this: It is not now and it never was a real word.
Instead of having a ceremony to symbollically bury something which has never been real---why not make anyone using the word, Legally Psycho-tic---insane.
Lock them up, give them thorazine and wish their soul well. Imagine how many people we'd get to lock up? Imagine how much land and money of theirs we could take over...hey, this might be a really swell, one of my finest maybe, ideas...
Posted by infidel_us at 03:07 PM : Jul 09, 2007
Morgan Freeman has said for some time now that he will not participate in Black History Month, because "black history is American history." If the media spotlight would focus more on this type of attitude, and person, it would be all for the good.
Please be quiet...read my idea...we could make some serious big time bucks here. Sir...please read my idea and think about it.
We wouldn't need to pass a law or anything. No law was passed about not using that NON-word all this time.
Just think about it. We quietly, without any major announcement, quietly pass a law, without putting it in writing. Then, we plant spies across the nation in all the major cities - undercover task forces...as soon as they hear the word--they shoot the skunk with a moose tranquilizer and OUR ambulance swings around to pick them up and take them to OUR NEW IMPROVED INSANE ASYLUM WHERE THEY NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE FOR ANY REASON.
While under sedation, we have them sign over all their assets and list us in their will. Done deal. THey are gone and we are getting richer by the day. Come on Mayor...Payback is a B-tch but Sir, in a Pay It Forward kind of way, know what I mean???
how about learning the persons name? why does someone need to be classified by a word? get a clue. and if you call someone colored, you will be addressing an entire nation.(depending on which color you are refering to)
This "word" is so powerful It Must Not Be Spoken, and it seems to be cast as the cause of all problems in black society. Well, it's not. One of the main problems in black society is exemplifified by the fact that the black mayor of a major city can't use simple English grammar.
""Die N-word, and we don't want to see you round here no more.""
It is this sort of ignorant shadowplay that perpetuates racism in this country, because to be quite frank, such idiotic displays and mis-use of the language by prominent black people make all black people look stupid by association. It's worse than useless; it does actual harm to the cause of racial equality.
SHUT UP! It makes that man look stupid, not an entire race of people,by association or otherwise.
"National Association for the Advancement of Colored People delegates from across the country gathered at downtown's Cobo Center and marched about a quarter-mile to Hart Plaza for a ceremony and rally."
This means that black people from all over the country took part in this idiocy, so it's not just one guy. And with regard to the grammar issue, when a prominent member of the black community, who could logically be assumed to be better-educated than most, can't speak basic English, it does indeed tend to make one think that other blacks will be even more poorly-spoken.
Yelling shut up, by the way, makes you look stupid, and the rest of your post supports that.
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