Nader's very
unpleasant N-gagement


If Ralph Nader doesn't stop dropping the N-bomb, Al Sharpton is going to wash out his mouth with soap.

"Nader is not a racist by any stretch of the imagination," Sharpton told me yesterday. "He has a good track record. But he ought to be sensitive that he does not sanitize that word."

Speaking Wednesday night at a Washington fund-raiser to retire the debt from his 2004 presidential campaign, Nader complained that Democratic Party powerbrokers had kept him off the ballot in such Southern states as Georgia and Virginia - which reminded him of the oppressive Jim Crow laws that denied African-Americans equal rights.

"I felt like a [n-word]," remarked the 70-year-old white multimillionaire graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

Washington gadfly Evan Gahr reported Nader's comments on his chimpstein.com Web site.

"If Ed Koch had said what Ralph Nader said, we'd be marching," Sharpton noted. "This [scolding] doesn't rise to the level of a march. It rises to the level of a wrist slap."

Yesterday, Nader told me he was using the word in the same spirit as the Black Panthers of the 1960s - "as a word of defiance."

But Sharpton retorted: "He's not a Black Panther."

Democratic operative Harold Ickes - a former civil rights activist who lost a kidney in 1965 after being beaten to a pulp by white racists in Tallulah, La. - was also troubled by Nader's use of the epithet.

"It's not something that I would say," Ickes told me yesterday. "Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s, I think it's not a word that whites can use.

"It's unfortunate and he may regret it."

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Can you imagine if a republican had said that?

Given how hard Bush and Cheney have worked to address the needs of the African-American community against all odds, Sharpton would probaby let it slide.

Laughable.

Sharpton should be tending to his own backyard, before setting his sights on Nader. If those in the black community want to change how the word is used (and there are), perhaps change will follow.

A big problem, sadly, is that many who don't like the word don't have the media exposure that Chris Rock, and many popular hip-hoppers have.

Personally, I would never think of using the word, as its historical weight surpasses any possible reason for redemption -- including any popular variations.

But I am a white male, so my opinion probably matters very little to those affected by this.

35,000,000 African-Americans
35,000,000 opinions about the word "nigger"

That word has a long and crazy past, and there's absolutely no consensus about how African-Americans should use it if they should use it at all.

Call me bigoted, but I don't think it's appropriate for a white person to use that word.

I wish I felt more free to use it. I think I could make some points stronger and sharper, but I feel restrained by political correctness, even though I would never direct the word towards a black person simply because they're black.

I think Chris Rock uses the word very appropriately, even when he directs it at black people. He doesn't refer to all black people that way, or as any kind of a term of affection like many rappers and other prominent black characters do. He uses it in a derisive way, but focuses it on those people and behaviors in the black community that are keeping black Americans from rising up out of their struggling situations. I admire his willingness to cut through the bullshit to get to the heart of the word's meaning in modern American consciousness.

It isn't appropriate for anyone to use the word.

Is it appropriate for black kids growing up in the ghetto to use the word? I don't see why not.

Why? If you think the word is so negative that white people shouldn't say it, why should black kids say it?

I personally don't like hearing black people use the term "cracker," but I have no problem using it with people I am comfortable with.

Like it or not, the wrongs performed up until the late 60s have not been completely addressed, and there are still bad feelings towards white people. If I am using the word, a black person has no clue what my intents are, and if I am racist or not, unless he knows me personally. If a black person is using the word, however, there is no reason to believe he is racist towards black people.

If the word is racist, then why would blacks want to continue using it? Yes, they are most likely not racist, but why not just let the word die? If they want to keep it alive, then it is fair game for everyone.

Just as with any other word, context is the most important factor in determining meaning. When used in a group of black people, it has an entirely different meaning, having more to do with black pride. It is "we are niggers" versus "you are a nigger." There is clearly a difference. And in all fairness, this is their thing, their word; they should be the ones who decide what usage is appropriate; not you or me or anyone else.

So now we're segregating words? Where does this end? What are my words?

This is ridiculous. You are racist. Stop feeling guilty for acts committed by others.

As long as America is segregating people, segregation of words is necessary. Context will be important as long as there is a feeling of animosity between the black community and the white community, and that requires openness on both sides. However, I don't feel that it will happen as long as there are things like confederate flags, wealth disparity, etc. You just have to face the fact that the word is offensive if used by white people, and not if used by black people. That's a fact, whether you like it or not.



Give me a fricking break. I'm racist??? Who am I racist towards? Clearly I'm not racist towards black people, as evidenced by my position on this issue. And it would be absurd to suggest that I am racist towards white people, as I am white.

Seriously, go live in a black neighborhood for a year. Get a dose of reality instead of listening to what the talking heads on TV say. Until you can walk down the street in a black neighborhood and have people shout epithets and threats at you and feel nothing but love for them and understand why they say what they do, you are the racist.

You're out of your mind. Why would anyone live in a neighborhood to be threatened? So you lived with a bunch of racists and felt love? Sure thing.

I have plenty of friends from all different backgrounds, and I don't need to move to know that this attitude of yours only further separates us. The people threatening you didn't deserve your love, because they're thugs threatening you because you are white. How is that different than the KKK? And yet, you love them. Why? Because you think you should. You somehow view them differently than you view white people. Racist.

So now you are calling a bunch of people you have never met "racists" and "thugs." I don't love them because I am supposed to. I do because I have met many of them, and regardless of what they were taught growing up, they are still good people who try to do what is right. Of course those people who would shout things at me are ignorant, as they've never met me, but that's the way they were brought up, and I can't hold it against them.

How is this different than the KKK? You can't be serious. The KKK is an organization meant just to hurt a specific group of people, who have done nothing to them. The white people, however, have done something to the blacks, so they have every right in the world to be bitter. In fact, they have every right to do that until we stop calling them racists and saying they have no right to be bitter because of the past.

The simple fact is, they're stuck in the ghetto because of us. They're uneducated because of us. They're not right to be bitter, but it is understandable.

What separates people is that silly "racist/not racist" dichotomy you have created. You have labeled an entire group of people as "racist" when you have not even bothered to try understanding where they came from. You don't understand their culture, and you seem to think you can judge people by your own cultural standards, which is racist.

N: "I ain't ever been to jail!"

CR: "You not supposed to go to jail ya dumb motherfucker!"

N: "I take care of my kids!"

CR: "What you want? A cookie? You supposed to take care of your kids. That's what you supposed to do!"



Guy cracks me up.

I absolutely use it to make a point or in context. Would I call somebody a nigger? No. Will I dance around the word like my face will explode if I use it? No.

amazing that some folks see nothing wrong with this, yet their panties are in knots over cheney dropping a, his mother doesnt even love him

Personal insult with malicious intent vs. Misuse of a word while referring to one's self with no malicious intent