To Slur or Not to Slur?

Don Podesta, the Washington Post's assistant managing editor for copy desks, is asking that WaPo writers find a better way to refer to the n-word than "the N-word":

"We've used this euphemism in more than a dozen stories in the last month. It's trivializing and almost cutesy, as in 'Johnny said the f-word in school today, Mom,'" Podesta wrote in a memo to staffers last week. The memo was first published in Richard Prince's "Journal-isms" online column on the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Web site.

Podesta wrote that it would be better for Post reporters to "take a few more words and say something like 'a well-known racial epithet.'"

Oh, but that's no fun — putting it like that could mean any racial epithet, and there are just so many to choose from! As an alternative, some African-American journos suggest we all get over it and print the damn word, though the WaPo has done exactly that 1,254 times since 1977. Just out of curiousity, we did a quick search on the Times' website, which revealed much more usage of "nigger" (OMG we typed it eek!) than we expected, though mostly in quotes or titles. There have been 934 instances since 1981 — and only 60 of those fell in the Sports section. Progress!

'Washington Post' Style Guru: Enough With The 'N-Word' [E&P]
Search Query [NYT]

4:20 PM on Tue Oct 10 2006
By Jessica
100 views
17 comments

Comments

chrisb at 03:56 PM on 10/10/06
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"A well-known racial epithet" is a mouthful. Surely, an assistant managing editor at Washington Post is familiar with Strunk and White.
JiggyMavis at 03:59 PM on 10/10/06
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My father calls them "jiggers". That'll work, yes?
Clarence Rosario at 04:00 PM on 10/10/06
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Connectedness Index: 228

"A well-known racial epithet" please!
The Assimilated Negro at 04:03 PM on 10/10/06
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don't lie, you e-mailed me the post with the ni-word left out and asked me to personally type it in so your fingers wouldn't be soiled. essentially outsourcing your racial epithetizing for, I presume, plausible deniability purposes.

(note: this is a joke, and epithetizing is not a word.)

but not only did you type it, you also did some advanced word searching for it. definitely dubious. plus, there's a definite "earnest" feel to the whole stats presentation. One gets the sense this post was fun, not one of the struggle-and-grind-it-out variety. hmmm ...

I'm looking at you with squinty-eyes Gawker.
(until you start salarizing n-words. holla!)

also, what's wrong with the word "negro?" A little institutionalized humility never hurt anyone.
erika at 04:04 PM on 10/10/06
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They could always spell it out like Tigger: "n-i-double guh-errrrrrrr."
stewman at 04:11 PM on 10/10/06
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Upstate we call em tar-babies when I done lived in Arizona they likes porch-monkies, I come accustomed to jungle-bunny miself though.
nojo at 04:23 PM on 10/10/06
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Connectedness Index: 62

Every time I take that road, I end up at Dead Honky.
bornbitter at 04:50 PM on 10/10/06
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I like porch monkey. It's quaint.

A Certain Gentleman
HolyCandy at 04:51 PM on 10/10/06
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It's a well-documented fact (and by well-documented, I, of course, mean an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm") that the only instance in which it's appropriate to use the N-word is when preceded by "You my...?"
Brian at 04:54 PM on 10/10/06
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I'll do whatever Dick Gregory recommends.
Killer Squid at 04:58 PM on 10/10/06
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The Times has been using "notorious racial epithet" lately. Which is a bit of a mouthful for day to day use. For example, when exasperated, it's frustrating to say "Notorious racial epithet, PLEASE!"
rufus at 05:05 PM on 10/10/06
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Spade is my favorite. It's very porkpie hat, goatee, bebop. I'd like to be a spade. Sadly, I'm just a hebe.
Little Mintz Sunshine at 05:55 PM on 10/10/06
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Connectedness Index: 195

When will haters understand that when you named your now-dead black cat A Well-Known Racial Epithet, you did so out of love...and using his name as your account password is just out of respect.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20560343-2,00.html
howYOUdoin at 05:56 PM on 10/10/06
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Dead "Honky" is very two decades ago. Dead Cracker or Dead Peckerwood would be more accurate. Or in the case of a woman, Dead White Bitch. And it would be said very lowercase.
Bon Jour, Pee Wee at 06:52 PM on 10/10/06
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Dead Cracker-billy.
raincoaster at 07:51 PM on 10/10/06
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Up here we just call them Americans. There are others?
the earl grey at 09:18 PM on 10/10/06
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here's how the Times Book Review euphemised on Sunday in review of Curt Flood bio:

" but to bigoted fans, they were just, well, you know the word. "

Fielder's Choice

By DAVID MARGOLICK
Published: October 8, 2006

As Brad Snyder makes clear in "A Well-Paid Slave," Flood was part of a crucial but overlooked community in American sports and racial history, one that might be called "Jackie Robinson's children." A few years younger than Robinson, these black ballplayers made their torturous way in the 1950's through baseball's underbelly - the minor leagues, usually in the South - but without the limited protection Robinson's limelight afforded him. We know them now as some of the sport's greatest stars - Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson - but to bigoted fans, they were just, well, you know the word. They faced horrific abuse, and all without a Branch Rickey or Pee Wee Reese to shield them.