Readers discuss a Sunday Review essay that spells out the slur and whether its use is acceptable in any context.
To the Editor:
Re “How the N-Word Became Unsayable,” by John McWhorter (Sunday Review, May 2):
Context matters. It is unacceptable to use racial slurs as pejoratives. It is also unacceptable to construct a taboo that would forbid the printing or utterance of racial slurs even when, as is in this article, the context is the racial slur as a word itself, not as a pejorative.
Word taboos that disregard context are a first step on a slippery slope to the squelching of thoughts and opinions.
John M. O’Connor
Montclair, N.J.
To the Editor:
Re “Why Times Opinion Decided to Publish This Slur,” by Ezekiel Kweku and Kathleen Kingsbury (Opinion Today newsletter, April 30):
The Times is to be commended for running Prof. John McWhorter’s detailed — and well-documented — article about the history and use of the N-word because it sets that word meaningfully apart from odious terms referring to other groups because of their religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, birthplace, etc.
In a country where the median age is about 38 years and there has been a Black president and there is currently a Black vice president, the typical American has no idea how casually that word was once used in referring to individual African-Americans or groups of us. Many younger people are probably unaware of how media ads, especially television and movie images, have changed from the almost total absence of a Black presence a few decades ago.
Maybe Professor McWhorter’s article will inspire more badly needed research on the history and usage of the N-word and reveal the painful harm it often heaped upon those of us to whom it referred.
David L. Evans
Cambridge, Mass.
To the Editor:
I am baffled as to why you would choose to print the essay. I am not part of the “postcountercultural cohort” to which John McWhorter refers, nor am I Black. I am white, privileged and old.
I find it offensive and shocking that we are given the historical etymology of a word that should be put to rest. There will be readers who justify its use because of the explanation of how it came to be.
My father taught his children that it was a word never to be uttered, as did we with our own children. I have never spoken it, written it or even thought it when describing anyone who was a person of color. We do not need to be open-minded about usage of words that hurt.
Mary Reich Cooper
Wallingford, Conn.
To the Editor:
John McWhorter’s piece on the N-word provided a brief but thorough history of the origin, usage and ultimate exclusion from contemporary English writing and conversation. I wonder if rather than “canceling” literature or artistic material containing the N-word from libraries, schools, theaters, museums, etc., his piece could be added as an insert.
It is a sad but true fact that many words used rather freely in the past would now be considered repugnant. Rather than eliminate every single one of these hurtful references, there could be teaching opportunities — perhaps starting at the high-school level, where young people are certain to have come to the realization that the world as we wish it to be is still aspirational.
Alan Zunamon
Chicago
To the Editor:
As a journalism professor at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, I have researched the N-word in America’s newspapers, interviewed Americans across the country about the word and written about the word while a columnist for The Hartford Courant.
Like many Black Americans growing up in the late 1960s, I once used the word among other Black people before ceasing such usage in my early 20s. Today, my giving air to the word occurs only when presenting work about the word on my website, The n-Word in America.
Increasingly, before discussions in public settings, the word’s “sayability” is established. Will I say it? Will I show it? How much?
I welcome the word becoming unsayable and unwritable in our everyday vocabulary by everyone. That said, as John McWhorter exemplified in his essay, sometimes the word needs to be written and spoken — for educational purposes.
Frank Harris III
Hamden, Conn.
To the Editor:
I was disappointed to get to the end of John McWhorter’s article and find no mention of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” where the unsayable word is prevalent but used in the context of colloquial re-creation and does not seem slanderous in light of Huck’s obvious love for Jim. I would have liked to have heard Mr. McWhorter’s take on Huck’s use of the word, and if current Black readers of this novel find the use of the unsayable word so distracting that the novel is unreadable.
Jeff Justice
San Marcos, Calif.
"use" - Google News
May 09, 2021 at 10:00PM
https://ift.tt/3exekO8
Opinion | Examining the Use of the N-Word - The New York Times
"use" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2P05tHQ
https://ift.tt/2YCP29R
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Opinion | Examining the Use of the N-Word - The New York Times"
Post a Comment