Activists Urge Boycott of the ‘N-word’

Even a complete ban wouldn’t stop a rage-aholic like Michael Richards from spewing hate speech.

African-American leaders, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California) and Rev. Jesse Jackson, gathered in Los Angeles yesterday to urge a nationwide boycott of the use of the “n-word.”

They were reacting to the infamous “stage rage” incident on November 17 in which former television star Michael Richards was videotaped at a local comedy club shouting racial epithets at two African-American men in the audience. The leaders said they were encouraging everyone, particularly Rap artists and African-American standup comics, to “just say no” to the n-word:

“We’re not trying to penalize anyone,” Waters said at a news conference at the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper, “but don’t use the n-word, no matter who you are, whether you’re black, white, young or old.”

Jackson added: “This word is a symbol of degradation and the actions that flow from it.”

Would banning the n-word help? It is already stigmatized among the 99.99 percent of African-Americans who aren’t Rap artists or their hardcore fans. It has been verbotten in all but a small reprobate segment of what might be called the “white community” for a generation or three. This self-censorship is why it is referred to as the “n-word,” like the “f-word,” “s-word” and the other unspeakables.

The boycott may resonate among standup comics but to reach Rap artists and their fans, political and spiritual leaders need to find advocates closer to the locus than Rev. Jackson and Rep. Water — maybe producer/artists like P-Diddy or Dr. Dre.

But even with a complete ban in place, it wouldn’t stop a rage-aholic like Michael Richards from spewing hate speech when he imagined his buttons were being pushed.

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