by Christopher Boot

Created on: February 21, 2007   Last Updated: April 30, 2007

Nigger. Nigger is just a word. To quote Lenny Bruce "if you say it enough, it doesn't mean anything any more". Trying to ban the use of it doesn't solve anything. It is not the word that causes the damage, it is the mind set of people who use it. Its not the word they say, its why they say they say the word. That should be the issue here. I can't even understand the reasoning behind this banning. Do they think that if you stop people using the word nigger, then people will stop being racists?

I have never understood prejudice of any kind and have always found it totally unacceptable to hate someone because of their skin, religion or sexuality and as a whole I've always found that most of the world agrees with me. Although, discrimination in the work place still seems pretty prevalent and homosexual slurs are not considered to be as offensive as racial slurs for some reason. When somebody uses the word nigger or paki, I do get offended. But not by the words, but by the context in which they are used. I guess I'm shocked that people can still be so ignorant in our modern world.

The word has also been taken back by the black community, much in the same way queer was adopted by the gay community, as a sign of comradeship. The longer a word is in the English language, the more the meaning evolves. The word naughty, for example, was used to describe people who were tried for crimes as serious as murder 200 years ago. Now it means nothing more than cheeky, scampish activity. Maybe one day the word nigger will lose all of its negative connotations.

Racism is a state of mind, not words. Most people don't wake up one day an decide to be a racist. Racism, or prejudice of any kind, often thrives in small towns. When you are bought up in an environment where you are told by your parents and your community that anyone different to you is to be hated, it creates a very difficult cycle to break. And banning the uses of words really doesn't come close to solving the problem. In fact, banning words is a totally irrelevant step towards combating prejudice. What words would be next? Cracker? Honky? Because its important to remember that racism doesn't just happen between whites and black. Ironically, racism doesn't discriminate. Anyone can be a racist.

Words aren't racist, people are.

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