Being descendants and current victims of an oppressive rule by a tyrannical king, the Founding Fathers were aware of the power brought to the people by free speech. By making even a slight gesture towards the banning of a word, no matter how offensive said word may be, we jeopardize our freedom of speech, our civil liberties and our future liberties for the sake of "saving face" in front of mounting racial tensions.

No matter the word, nor it's intended meaning, words can not be banned. The Constitutional right of speech is meant to include speech that, at times, may be offensive and degrading. Freedom of speech does not protect someone who shouts "fire" in a crowded theater but it does protect someone's right to be an idiot or a racist.

We react differently to this sort of position in part because of the word chosen for banishment. We have deemed the word "nigger" as the worst of words to have spoken from any white person's lips. Apparently, when black rappers and comedians chose to use the word "nigger", the Al Sharpton's and Jesse Jackson's of the world whom are merely tuning in also are tuning out. It's use is celebrated with "artists" who receive Grammy's for their work...

Haha, yeah
Yeah that's it nigga, what the f___ you thought
I ain't giving niggaz more than 16 for a motherf_____ freestyle
The f___ you want for free man
Ya'll niggaz be wanting a lot for free man
F___ them other niggaz, other niggaz can't rap
That's why they give you 100 motherf_____ bars for nothing man
You know what I mean
F___ that s___ man, I ain't gonna sit there rappin to you all night
Haha, the f___ man
Hey yo, Sha Money XL, nigga teamwork
We work hard nigga
50 Cent

So if this word is as horrendous as the good reverends would have you believe, then they should be crusading against anyone who is perverting people's minds by using it. That is why the reverends and others are here. They can be the conscious police. Let them police language. Using the constitution or some other federally funded regulation to tell voters what they can and can not say is wrong on so many levels.

With the banishment of "nigger", what word is next? Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that with one word on a banishment list, hundreds of more would not soon follow. What do you think the Christian coalition and the ACLU would be doing knowing they could get words banned from the public? What's next after words? What else do we ban in the name of "decency"? What is our next freedom we get to lose because a special interest or race motivated group thinks up something?

Words are simply that. Words. Words are harmless. They carry no ammunition nor the means to hurt. Their denotations, mostly forgotten or unknown, are frequently replaced by our cultural and environmental connotations. This is when words sharpen their edges. It's not the word you need to worry about, it's the person using the word. What "nigger" means to me is not what it means to 50 Cent(unless I'm saying it, then it means what I think it means to 50 Cent as well). His culture and environment dictate to him what words are suitable to use, as do mine. I know that the majority of people on this continent(myself included) deem that word to be vile, cruel, ignorant, and at the peak of racism. I also know that for the government to tell me or 50 we can not use that word, "government" begins to take on a new meaning for us. Banning the word doesn't ban the people who twisted the word. We think by erasing the word, we will erase it's use, when the only thing we'll be erasing are our freedoms.

Learn more about this author, Jimmy Ettele.
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