The word is nigger.
Let's not call it "the N-word" or "a racial slur". We're adults here. Words have power, yes, but circumlocutions like "the N-word" give them more power than they deserve. And so the word Paul Deen admits she has uttered on numerous occasions is nigger.
It's odd what an extra g does. It turns the Latin word niger, "black", into a word so toxic it can kill careers and irrevocably tarnish reputations...if a white person says it, that is. If a black person says it, of course, it means nothing. I find that very strange, don't you? Occasionally gay people will call each other fag, almost always as a way to reclaim the hurtful word. But other than that, I can't think of a single minority that freely throws around the pejoratives other people use for it. You don't hear Jews calling each other kike or Germans calling each other Kraut.
An American academic named Cornel West said,
"There's a certain rh…
Let's not call it "the N-word" or "a racial slur". We're adults here. Words have power, yes, but circumlocutions like "the N-word" give them more power than they deserve. And so the word Paul Deen admits she has uttered on numerous occasions is nigger.
It's odd what an extra g does. It turns the Latin word niger, "black", into a word so toxic it can kill careers and irrevocably tarnish reputations...if a white person says it, that is. If a black person says it, of course, it means nothing. I find that very strange, don't you? Occasionally gay people will call each other fag, almost always as a way to reclaim the hurtful word. But other than that, I can't think of a single minority that freely throws around the pejoratives other people use for it. You don't hear Jews calling each other kike or Germans calling each other Kraut.
An American academic named Cornel West said,
"There's a certain rh…