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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I'll admit, I didn't read all four articles. I got about half way through the first one and was just wondering "I still have no idea what this is all about." Fortunately, the Wikipedia article on the author has a brief summary.

In particular, I thought this quote from the Wikipedia article really summarizes the differences between older and younger generations: "there is a profound difference between using a racial epithet in the course of a discussion about that racial epithet's use, and using a racial epithet to diminish or to wound someone."

For "socially conscious" people in my generation (Gen X), I think nearly all of us would find calling someone a racial epithet abhorrent. At the same time, while I understand culture has shifted and I wouldn't do it now, I still find it quite bizarre that the mere utterance of the epithet, even in a sentence like "You should never call someone a <racial epithet> because that is extremely offensive" is considered itself racist by younger people.

I recall hearing about a young popular YouTuber about a year or so ago who was accused of being racist simply for singing along to the lyrics of a popular rap song. Even more strange to me was that his defense (which was true if one looked up his Instagram video) was that he did NOT utter said epithet, in that he was singing along with the lyrics but when it got to that word he just skipped it and didn't say it.

I understand culture changes, but it still bothers me that we've gotten to the point where we completely disregard intent and focus instead just on the syntax of what was said. To be clear, I'm not sure if that's indeed what occurred in Mr. McNeil's case, but I certainly have seen it in other examples.

View on HN

I find the current rapidly changing culture around the N-word fascinating, honestly. Decades from now, I'm sure sociologists will build entire careers on what we're going through. This is, I think, the first time in my life that I've seen a word in American culture become taboo.

By that I mean not that expressing the meaning of a word is forbidden, not the idea, but the utterance itself. If, like me, you tend to assume that cultures become more progressive and tolerant over time, this is an interesting very strong counter-example. Having a word that you that literally can't say even in quotation or reference implies something almost akin to magical thinking. As if the two syllables themselves, even when stripped of meaning, still have some kind of power.

What I think is happening is that (like almost everything) it comes down to group membership signaling. Progressive, anti-racist US culture has decided that not saying the N-word is a marker of group membership. If you say the word, even when simply mentioning it, it says that you didn't get the memo about not using the word. Therefore, you might not be part of the anti-racist in-group. And if you aren't one of "us", then you're probably one of "them". And therefore maybe even just mentioning the word becomes morally akin to actually using it.

You can look at this as similar to other arbitrary-seeming abstinences that groups take up. It is almost a feature that the prohibition is arbitrary because it emphasizes that the abstainer is doing so for group signaling reasons and not for pragmatic ones.

Having a word that you that literally can't say even in quotation or reference implies something almost akin to magical thinking.

The only thing I can think of that’s comparable is how Jews treat the divine name. I’d be uncomfortable to type it out in Hebrew even though I haven’t been religious for many years.

do you mean "yaweh" ??

all this reminds me of the way they treat the evil wizard's name "voldemort" in harry potter

yeah but I think in the books he has a spell that allows him to see into your mind or something if you say his name so that would make sense.

Except that was never true and it was all superstitious bullshit inside the Wizarding World. Dumbledore only refrained from saying Tom Riddle’s emo name because of social pressure — if there was any chance of remote legilimency he’d have never said “Voldemort” because he was fighting a damned war against him. So no, it’s just a normal taboo, probably initiated by Voldy himself to spread fear.

Spoiler alert:

In one of the last books, the 3 main characters teleport to a London pub or something, and then the Deatheaters attack them. And I’m pretty sure the book says they were found because one of them said Voldemort’s name.

Edit:

It was in Deathly Hallows book. https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-voldemort-name-not-spoke...

Yes, and it’s the reason they were found later as well. Since the only people who would say the name were people who opposed him, it was an efficient way for him to locate these people.

In the last book, the name was Taboo-ed, so that the Death Eaters could find whoever said it. Not mind-reading

Somebody in an earlier discussion mentioned Monty Python's "Life of Brian": "No throwing rocks until I say so, I don't care who says 'Jehovah'!"

I legitimately do not understand this line of thought. The stuff is old, going through many translations, and editing passes, and printings. So the divine name must have been destroyed in printings multiple times. Has god smote anyone yet for this?

Do you not understand any disgust / taboo reactions or is it just the more abstract ones you have trouble with? Like would you get it if someone told you he’d hesitate to reach into a toilet even if it has just been cleaned?

Many taboos are explainable: toilet = feces = disease. I would be fine reaching into a toilet.

Many are also just dumb: No blood transfusion, no birth controls, etc

> The only thing I can think of that’s comparable is how Jews treat the divine name.

There is a major US legal case which touched on precisely this situation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_v._California , the "Fuck the draft" case.

Cohen stood accused of using the word. But at the beginning of oral argument, the Chief Justice euphemistically directed his attorney, Melville Nimmer, not to quote it when going over the facts of the case:

> I might suggest to you that as in most cases, the Court's thoroughly familiar with the factual setting of this case and it will not be necessary for you, I'm sure, to dwell on the facts.

Nimmer explicitly recognized, and intentionally misinterpreted, Burger's instructions:

> At the Chief Justice's suggestion I certainly will keep very brief this statement of facts [...]

> [...] may it please the court what this young man did was to walk through a courthouse corridor in Los Angeles county on his way to a courtroom where he had some business.

> [interruption]

> While walking through that corridor he was wearing a jacket upon which were inscribed the words "Fuck the draft", also were inscribed the words "Stop war" and several peace symbols.

Whether Nimmer could be allowed to quote the word "Fuck" in defending his client for expressing the message "Fuck the draft" was a major issue at the time. The Court attempted to forbid it but didn't quite have the power to do so.

And this is often credited with getting Cohen acquitted. Nimmer's ability to quote the word inside the hallowed confines of the courtroom dealt significant damage to the idea that using it on the way to the courtroom was punishable.

I don't think this is a new thing. I was raised in the 90s in a very suburban area and I never heard the n-word spoken and it was always censored when spoken when we read To Kill a Mockingbird.

When in the 90s? I am very positive that the very first time I heard "The N word" as a euphemism for the actual epithet was from Johnnie Cochran during the OJ Simpson trial in 1995. I remember thinking that sounded awkward at the time because people would say things like "the F word" or "the S word" to substitute for those well known curse words, but "the N word" was brand new to me.

I'm not saying Johnnie Cochran invented the term, but in my suburban area I had never previously heard that.

That is a reasonable and sensitive way to handle it. Things have change though, now To Kill a Mockingbird is being removed from curriculums for being racist.

https://www.newsweek.com/kill-mockingbird-other-books-banned...

What will they remove next, "Uncle Tom's cabin"??!

Kind of a sad irony that they ban To Kill a Mockingbird over "racism" when it's a book about the importance of extending due process to a black man falsely accused of rape, happening at the same time as "Believe All Women" etc.

It's being removed from curricula because parents complained about the perceived racist effects of the actual teaching of the book done in the district, and the district leaders found it easier to ban the specific books than to either figure out if there was a pedagogical problem and, if so, address it.

The problem here is not “cancel culture", but “lazy elected politicians who don't take their duties seriously”.

Well the whole cancel culture is based exactly on that. The laziness of submitting to the crowd instead of taking a principled stand.

Then what will they do about Huckleberry Finn?

> What I think is happening is that (like almost everything) it comes down to group membership signaling.

That's one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play. Everyone with even modicum of intelligence understands the use-mention distinction, that there is a profound difference between quoting and using the word. Everyone understands that it is clearly wrong and stupid to attack someone as evil for mentioning the word, especially if they mention it in the context of telling people how wrong it is to use it.

Nevertheless, the person is still attacked. The goal is to make it clear to all people observing, that no matter how stupid and wrong it might be, they have full, unobstructed power to destroy anyone at will, under flimsy circumstances, so you'd better not ever cross them. That this is stupid and wrong is the entire point: anyone can attack, shame and destroy people for doing wrong, evil things, but only powerful people and ideologies can attack and destroy people for absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever.

"Itchy trigger finger" explains this far better than "they're out to get me", honestly. Sure, there might be some machiavellian individuals using this as an opportunity to attack others, but by and large it's clear to see this is more of an overcompensation by people trying to do the right thing.

what is itchy trigger finger, though, if not a yearning to express power?

It's a reaction to fear. In this case, an overreaction. People are afraid to say the wrong thing. People are afraid of having once said a wrong thing, to potentially sully their legacy or impact their career like a ticking time bomb. Or even be peripherally responsible for harboring someone who once said a wrong thing. This social movement towards accountability has created a sense of paranoia and friendly-fire, and it's not healthy for anyone.

An allergy. No, really, you can get a lot of mileage from thinking of cultural reactions to ideas as immune reactions. Some ideas we actually need to attack and destroy (any falsehood, certain proven-toxic ideologies), some just look too much like pathogens and get attacked anyway.

> An allergy.

Or to put it another way, an autoimmune disease.

Man, this is such an excellent analogy. Well done!

Humans keep throwing stones at those they deem sinners, shouting slurs and expletives, as part of a hate group dynamic. They have no control over these actions, are not trying to achieve anything good, even if they rationalize their behavior in that way. Sure there is signaling, status and power somewhere in that mess, as it is always the case with human behavior, but these individuals are not active, not in control. They are being dragged along an ugly dynamic of group psychology that has been recorded since the beginning of history. What can help is emotional maturity achieved by self reflection, but even then one can still fall for it, because anger, agitation and hate are easier then being wise and enlightened. That is not a new insight, we have bronze age books and star wars memes about that.

This is true except "the right thing" is "indiscriminate fighting" perpetuating a cycle of hatred.

This should also demolish the argument that the use of the n-word in music and black culture has in any way "robbed the word of its power." Clearly the word terrifies and offends people, even if this offense is partially performative. It's not a feckless word.

It doesn't terrify or offend anyone; it's a hall pass to strike at a non-black person.

Am I understanding you correctly - do you actually believe the n-word, in its full, uncensored form doesn't offend anyone? This brings to mind the "Say it" scene from The Good Fight: https://youtu.be/S4pSp3Km6Mw?t=66

No, this it totally upside down.

White teens on a vacation cannot be 'deeply offended by a historically offensive term of subjugation'.

The power of the word in this context is not 'material offences' to those who have suffered in slavery - it's 'social offence' invented by the SJ crowd.

Children have been taught to 'be offended' and to castigate when they hear the word - so they do.

That the word has become political anathema has nothing to do with the depth of it's true offence, rather, it's mostly about the preformative aspects of morality.

People are offended by little things, and now we've enabled them to implicate others with a kind of moral judgment.

It's the new Blasphemy laws of the Left.

"The children told us you said what about Jesus? Heathen!!"

I don't think my statement disagrees with yours.

"Everyone with even modicum of intelligence understands the use-mention distinction" --> so we can agree that the editors of the NY times don't have a modicum of intelligence. Why do people read this paper?

It's really not about the word. The word was clearly a smoke screen for the NYT leadership to oust a labor leader. They even claimed they had handled the issue internally when it actually happened, and have a history of using the word frequently, when writing about it in the meta sense. By the time the Daily Beast got a hold of it--mind you, a tabloid that no legitimate paper should ever have to work about--it was a 2-year-old, cold story.

This is such a clear-cut case of railroading someone that the only reason I can imagine that everyone here is talking about use-vs-mention is because the author took so damn long to get to this point. I guess journalists really do need good copy editors.

The manifesto that got McNeil fired was pretty clear in that they understand the distinction, they just don't care.

It is similar to the logic of ethnic cleansing. Many perpetrators are smart enough to understand that "not all Serbs are criminals", but they persecute the outgroup anyway, either for fun, or out of "the end justifies the means" logic.

It reminds me of this Monty Python skit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks

"Now look, no one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle. Even...and I want to make this absolutely clear...even if they do say "Jehovah."

> That's one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play.

I would characterize it more as a threat display with collateral damage. A power play implies that the thing you're using the power play on is the direct goal, but here it's more a signal to show that anyone can be taken down. Sort of like when the overlord kills a randomly chosen subjugant to send a message.

I do think there is an aspect of this to it, yes. I don't personally attribute any large scale organized (organized who?) intention behind. More that the emergent properties of our culture have left this new shiny machine gun laying on the floor and some people, for various reasons, are firing off a couple of shots.

We're living in a tumultuous time where power structures are changing. That tends to temporarily leave a lot of destructive toys around and people are going to scrabble for them and do a lot of harm before things settle back down. I hope that when they do we find that the power in the US has been distributed more equitably than it has in the past.

It's a shibboleth. A weapon that an underprivileged class (black people) can weild against any unsuspecting non-black-enough person who accidentally walks into the trap.

The justification is that suffering arbitrary harm is Black History, and this is their chance to inflict the same on the mainstream.

That's what it started out as, but these days it's used as a cheap status display. Effectively, the so called empowerment of under-priviliged groups is what holds them down and that's deliberate. Otherwise there would be no groups to protect and hence no cheap status display.

I believe the technical term is "revenge".

> It's a shibboleth.

That's definitely not the original definition of and metaphorical use of "shibboleth".

Modern shibboleths would be things like whether or not you capitalize "Black", using "democrat" as a noun instead of "democratic ___", "right-winger", and "leftist" (mostly). It's a word that when you use it, it reveals something about which group you are a member of.

> A weapon that an underprivileged class (black people) can weild against any unsuspecting non-black-enough person who accidentally walks into the trap.

No, the sociological forces in play here are more complex than that. In the linked article, as far as I know, all of the students that complained are themselves also white and rich. This is a group of people in the exact same racial and socio-economic group as the person being attacked.

Here is an interesting blog on Political correctness and the use-mention distinction http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005349.h...

That's one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play.

It’s a framing exercise. You might think it is a harmless demand “don’t use word X” but it establishes the relationship psychologically as one party is dominant, even if the submissive party doesn’t fully realise it. And it’s quite naked once you look at it: the people making these demands simply want money, they haven’t got any coherent philosophy other than gimme gimme (and dindu nuffin).

I don't think this is all that unprecedented. I think a fair number of curse words today were perceived as much worse in the past, especially when they invoked a sense of blasphemy in some contexts, or dishonor in another.

Fuck is not much of an effective curse word in many contexts as people don't care if its said.

> I don't think this is all that unprecedented.

If you can point to a time in American history when one's livelihood and reputation could be utterly destroyed for uttering a 'magic incantation', I'd like to hear about it.

Oh wait - I remember now, something in Salem in the late 17th century?

I think calling the word in question a "magic incantation" is fairly dismissive of the meaningfulness of that specific word, and the specific cultural reasons why it's treated as it is.

There aren't a lot of historical analogs to it.

It's so funny watching people trying to turn this into some sort of martyrdom lol.

We had a guy lose his chance at a presidency over an excited woop?

Are you even trying to hide the victim complex anymore when you act like this is the first time a word could get you fired?

And are you actually trying to compare this to the Salem witch trials now? And call the n word a magic incantation?

I'm black and I've heard "why let that word have power over you??????"

funny how all it takes to make people of the exact race that says that to go off the deep end is not being allowed to say it.

Literally the absence of a word upsets you to the point you start calling racial slurs "magic incantations"

It's good that you came here to express your issues with use of this word.

>> Literally the absence of a word upsets you to the point you start calling racial slurs "magic incantations"

There are people who believe intent matters. A mere arrangement of letters or phonemes cannot itself be a slur. This distinction between utterance and intent is not superficial. Not just about the absence of a single word. It's correcting a category error.

Many of those same people would make similar arguments about say blasphemy.

Ah yes, of course the stupid savage just doesn't understand simple intent...

This is the most overused bullshit response by your ilk, sticking me with the most radical take possible where none was implied then tearing it down.

This guy didn't lose his job just because he said the N-word without negative intent.

By his own estimation he brashly lived on the edge of what was ok but never went to far. All of this "I can be an asshole".

Turns out people tend to have charitable views of themselves. Judging by how much exposition he needs to wrap it up in and how someone was willing to call him "the end of the asshole era" something tells me the "few" times he was an asshole stuck with people.

You're free to toe the line of what's ok, but yeah this is exactly what happens eventually:

A messy situation shows up and instead of others defaulting to treating him charitably they defaulted to treating him as a liability.

He signed his own firing papers with that asinine cryptic "Don't believe everything you read", but you know, even in such a serious situation he couldn't resist one more bit of snark.

I mean, serious laughing my ass off, imagine trying to "flippantly" convey anything in that middle of that shitstorm.

He lived by the sword and he died by the sword, pity.

I wasn't defending the OP's actions. I had read his defence but none of the accusations against him. I cannot evaluate whether he has been fairly treated. Your justification of his accusers' actions makes some sense to me.

Your first couple of paragraphs were unnecessarily aggressive and inflammatory. You are just flat out wrong to imply that was how I was thinking of you. If it was your intention to demonstrate the OP was treated fairly, these two paragraphs should have the opposite effect. From my point of view, if you could be so wrong about me, perhaps those accusers might have been wrong about him. This is weak reasoning, but you can imagine how I could swing in the counter direction after what you wrote.

For the sake of clearing up a previous misunderstanding, I never thought you incapable of understanding intent. I was pointing out that in that particular sentence that I highlighted, lies the root of a contention. People are using phrases like "magic incantation" because for such people a word taken in isolation can never hold power. Words must always be taken in context to reveal intent. Elsewhere in this thread there are comparisons to the word "Jehova", which seems apt. Mere utterance of this word was, at some point, considered to be invocation of the deity. Many people now consider such a taboo to be based on ignorance. I guess I will find out, since I just wrote it down;)

Yet there is another word on which taboo is still near universal. There is no context in which I feel it may be used safely here. That this is the case is a bad thing. Not because of the absence of one word, which has historically been used in a very mean spirit and would not be missed. Rather because of the category error that brought us to this point. And because of the risks of allowing this type of error.

I invite your reply, but I implore you to try to be charitable. I have not made nor implied any disrespect to you.

You should look into McCarthyism.

You should too!

My points written elsewhere are that while this particular moment was sensationalized, from his own posts I don't get the impression at all that he created a negative and unpopular reputation for himself by a single incident alone.

Here's a one second google search on actual laws against cursing though: https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/2009/08/11/curses-blas...

> Fuck is not much of an effective curse word in many contexts as people don't care if its said.

Of course, it depends on where you are.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/05/25/613750683/epis...

In which a man who had volunteered a year of his life to help a community was almost driven out of town because he accidentally dropped the F-bomb in a moment of frustration.

> By that I mean not that expressing the meaning of a word is forbidden, not the idea, but the utterance itself. If, like me, you tend to assume that cultures become more progressive and tolerant over time, this is an interesting very strong counter-example. Having a word that you that literally can't say even in quotation or reference implies something almost akin to magical thinking. As if the two syllables themselves, even when stripped of meaning, still have some kind of power.

I don't know that the people who leveled accusations against this guy are completely equating "usage" and "meta-usage".

I do know that there are people who view "meta-usage", particularly in casual conversation, as problematic. The n-word is viewed by them to have connotations of severe power imbalance and violence, particularly in the mouth of a white person. The idea that they should have to hear the word in casual conversation, without warning, whether it's intended to wound or not, is contentious. Intent matters, but so do the words themselves. To put it in your terms, some words cannot just be "stripped of meaning" to some people.

I personally empathize with people who feel this way, despite being a white guy for whom no such word with such visceral effect seems to exist. Even if discussing racism in a conversation, I probably just wouldn't whip out a historical quote from someone that happened to have the n-word in it. And I don't think that's as ridiculous as you're making it out to be.

Nobody is suggesting that contextualized, or (ideally, to some) forewarned, meta-usage will never have its place. But that's not really what happened in this story, is it?

Its not even the word, it's the syllables apparently.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-sus...

That case was confusing because he was talking about the Chinese word in English, so it really sounded like he was referencing the English derogatory term. My guess is that most of the people who complained didn't even bother to try and understand what he was actually saying, so this arguably did involve some sort of 'magical' thinking on their part.

It's really clear cut. Just check the annotations: it clearly writes nega.

Dunno about it being the first big taboo word. I find that the C-word [0] inhabits kind of a similar space. The demographics are different, and I suspect that more people overall view the c-word as highly taboo, both because the n-word has been to a larger extent than the other reclaimed within some Black subcultures[1], and because the US has significant populations who use it with the intent of either causing offense to the out-group or for signaling in-group status with their peers.

Meanwhile in England, C is still seen as quite a rude word, but the level of taboo is seemingly lower than in the US. NSFW language exchange discussion: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/7059/why-is-cnt-...

I’m not a historian, but I recall reading that a century or more ago, religious blasphemies occupied a similar space. Innocuous-sounding exclamations like “jeez!” and the half-archaic “zounds!” are evolved from the formerly-taboo “Jesus!” and “God’s wounds!” respectively.

Back then, taboo was concerned with offending/demeaning God, and now taboo is concerned with offending/demeaning black people and women. I see this as an improvement, because insulting God is between you and God, while insulting people can cause real harm to them.

[0] https://youtu.be/cR2tp5j5xD0 (Arrested Development clip, I’m still a little surprised they got this past the censors. Mild NSFW?)

[1] I don’t mean to imply that it’s largely accepted, it’s just that in my experience N is more widely-used publicly by some Black subcultures than C is used publicly by women who are in feminist subcultures. It has not been reclaimed to the same extent.

I don't find that to be true for the c-word (American here).

I'll edit out of respect for the low-profanity nature of HN discourse, but if someone said "Jan had a falling out with Marcia after she called her a meddling c#nt", that wouldn't phase me. I would find it amusing and childish if someone said "c-word" as a mention, in a context where an f-bomb would not be out of place, which is most adult conversation.

Yeah calling someone a daft c#nt isn't something we really do here, and it's about as misogynistic as insults get, but by contrast: white Americans really do take pains to never pronounce the n-word, use, mention, singing along with the radio, or under any other circumstance. No white American would complete the sentence, "as Muhammad Ali put it, 'no Viet Cong ever called me...'".

It's an actual taboo, at this point: it is simply never to be said, and it's tough to make a living or complete an education after a single offense, if made in public or documented.

Edit to add: I did say "no white American" but there's a certain subculture who do, and I have no idea what to call them now, since the name itself is pretty offensive. We would sometimes refer to them as Wegroes to be droll.

Yes that’s fair. My experience may be biased regarding more conservative usage of words or ideas of what’s considered to be taboo.

It's true that if you go and use that word in anything like the British normal fashion, let alone Australian, you will get panicked looks and be shushed.

But then again: for the most part, Americans don't know what bugger means. It registers as a silly British euphemism for the f-word!

Truly two people divided by a common language. Lets not even get into the fact that you can buy an accessory where the label says it's a "fanny pack"...

Yeah, I only learned about all of these differences when I got into British panel shows, some of which are truly fantastic.

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown was my introduction, and Taskmaster is far and away one of the funniest things on TV.

The latter show will broadly appeal to nerds, because most task descriptions (like “bring in the heaviest item that fits inside a shoe box”) leave loopholes large enough to drive lorries through, and the contestants are by turns great and terrible at exploiting them (in this case, “a copy of Mein Kampf”; which category this falls under is left as an exercise for the reader).

> while insulting people can cause real harm to them.

How so?

Being demeaning is pretty much always the first step in hurting people psychologically.

It seems like there is a rhetorical escalation ladder from insult to hurt to harm. I’m not saying that can never be the case but I do think the contemporary blurring of the lines is unfortunate.

Well, as just one data point, I have never heard the phrase "The C Word" until I read your post, and honestly wasn't exactly sure which word you were referring to until I read further. I don't think it's anywhere close to the same level of prohibition as the N word.

Yes, that was half used to avoid the vulgarity and half because another running gag in Arrested Development involves a boat named “The Seaward.” I’m sure I’ve seen it referred to as such elsewhere, but it’s probably not common. Ain’t the first time I’ve been wrong.

You might be amused to hear about the purported Gaelic origins of Holy Cow and Gee whillikers then.

> I've seen a word in American culture become taboo

Especially one that sees such frequent use (but only by specific people).

>And if you aren't one of "us", then you're probably one of "them". And therefore maybe even just mentioning the word becomes morally akin to actually using it.

I've lost my once closest friend to this. I'm not current on the rapidly changing landscape of acceptable left expression, and apparently the far-right is able to taint any word they choose. The moment they use it, they own it.

We may agree on 70% of issues, but they've become so accustomed to their echo chamber that anyone with who speaks differently, let alone has a few different ideas, causes them emotional distress. They must be from the other side. They must be arguing in bad faith. Our beliefs are the best and everyone else is ignorant.

It's a cancer. As destructive as the attempted insurrection was, these types of people cause far more damage by alienating vast swaths of voter population with their petulance. They then turn their lenses against their elected representatives, offices teetering on the edge of a knife, demanding more and criticizing inaction.

These are destructive extremists with no end of people to blame, chastise, and criticize - except themselves.

> apparently the far-right is able to taint any word they choose

Oh yes I hate this. I saw a long argument either here or on Reddit where someone made the tired old "something #2: electric boogaloo" joke as has been done for many years but it set off an alarm because some cosplay commandos used that phrase themselves for an operation so it's forever off limits.

It's one of many similar cases. How weak it is to just give up ground like that.

Another example is the number 88. God forbid you or someone you know was born in 1988 so you use it as part of your username because it's easy to remember. I've been accused of being a neo-nazi here and on reddit because my wife was born in 1988, so I normally use it in my username.

If the right people at Google hear about the 8.8.8.8 DNS server, it will be debated for months.

Thousands of billable hours for the ideologues.

"Did you know that literally double Hitler, or possibly Hitler squared, is working for Google?"

God have mercy on those born January 4th, 1988.

"but they've become so accustomed to their echo chamber that anyone with who speaks differently"

This is one of the tragedies of English being a global language. Even the weirdest creeds can accumulate enough believers to create an echo chamber that grows beyond personal Dunbar number and envelopes the user completely.

Only about 11 million people speak my language and creating a perfect echo chamber is harder. Instead of 200 users, a particular set of viewpoints may only attract eight or so. But eight is a weak group and its members are constantly forced to interact with the rest of the world.

You're blaming the bad faith actions of the 'far right' on a thread about the bad faith arguments of the 'far left'?

I am empathetic: I have insane family members who believe Trump is God, and anyone who questions that is a Communist!.

But that inanity is easy for us to recognize - the harder part is to see it among those we would otherwise respect, like the NYT.

> What I think is happening is that (like almost everything) it comes down to group membership signaling.

This reminds me of something I've observed on Tiktok. The site has trends where they put an audio clip over a video of the poster and then different people perform the same trend to the same audio.

A hugely disproportionate number of the audio clips, something like half, contain the N-word. They're not just random snips from random rap songs, but the specific songs that contain the word and that specific section of the song.

Now I'm thinking it's virtue signaling. They choose that clip specifically because it contains the word and they can demonstrate themselves not saying it when they say the rest of the clip.

Or, if you want to go the other way, that the Tiktok algorithm is promoting those clips because they're owned by China and trying to sow discord or promote signaling mistakes by future leaders which can then be used to cancel them at will.

I think what has happened is a lot of trolls and provocateurs, both online and offline, have purposefully attempted to use the word in demeaning ways while also claiming innocence. "Testing the boundaries," so to speak.

"But it's just a picture of a cartoon frog holding a gun! I didn't post it because the user above me said they were black, I just think it's a funny meme! Honest!"

One logical response is to take a harder and harder line against Pepe memes, including ones that really were posted in good faith!

> This is, I think, the first time in my life that I've seen a word in American culture become taboo.

I've known that the N-word is one I'm entirely not allowed to say since the mid nineties. I was raised in a conservative household. This isn't a new thing, is it?

Not to my knowledge. Been pretty taboo since at least the mid-80s

Using the word has been taboo for a very long time, but mentioning it has not been. Plenty of respectable people have mentioned the word and kept their careers. Here's a talk that linguist Steven Pinker gave at Google in 2007 where he mentions the word.[1] Later in the Q&A he says, "I don't swear. I talk about swearing. Any of you who have taken philosophy will recognize the use versus mention distinction."[2]

It's utterly bizarre that so many people today refuse to recognize this distinction. I think this video has only stayed up because nobody has brought it to the attention of the public. Pinker would never be able to give that talk today, and Google would never have uploaded it to YouTube.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBpetDxIEMU&t=30m05s

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBpetDxIEMU&t=1h02m45s

I think people recognize the distinction but recognize mentioning it by name is optional almost always. I can't remember the last time I heard an official or reporter say the word instead of describing it.

The South Park Naggers episode was from 2007. I don't believe any network on TV would dare greenlight that episode today.

I went straight to the Author's Wikipedia page to get the tl;dr version of what he allegedly did. The Wikipedia article has the n-word in it. And I don't mean "n-word", I mean the actual word.

From Wikipedia (censorship mine) "The Daily Beast reported that multiple participants accused McNeil of repeatedly making racist and sexist remarks, including the use of the word "n-----" in the context of discussing racist language,"

There's something very bizarre about the state of things when he is punished for asking someone "Did you say n-----?", but then using the word in its fullness when reporting on what he said is permissible.

[Edit: Spelling/grammar]

Back in highschool the n-word was a daily occurrence because my school was 60% black, 20% hispanic, 10%white, 10% asian. It was also the mid 90's and gangsta rap was en vogue. I remember an occurrence in shop class where a student used the n-word to greet his friend when the teacher became infuriated and told the student to "Please stop using that word. Its insulting to all of us of african descent." The student being the usual class clown he was responded "You mean NI*" shouting the n-word. Everyone laughed. The teacher just shook his head. Another time some of my classmates were singing lyrics to an Onyx song (judicial use of the nword in bakdafukup) and were messing with me saying "come on, sing with us, just say the word" I was petrified to say the n word and they laughed that I wouldn't say it "Oh the white boy is scared to say n** hahaha." Though they finally cracked me and I did sing along and they cheered when I said it. No big deal. Another time a white teacher was also upset with the use of the n-word that she strait up said to the student "So if I said to you 'whats up n**' you would not be offended?" the student casually said "nah its cool now." Times have changed.

Though casually the n-word is used all the time. My puertorican tenant (commercial) uses the n-word with his black coworkers in normal conversation. Even my Guyanese friends use the n-word among each other and their black friends.

So when I read articles like this I am befuddled.

It is a function of privilege. The more privileged the more the person feels confident being outraged. Something weird about people is the less problems they have the more problems they make up.

Hence the Karen meme. It is pointing out how the most privileged class of humans in the history of the world (35-45 year old white women) are also the most aggressive and easiest to be outraged by "injustice".

This is hardly a realistic take. Claiming white women are drinking from some firehouse of 100% privilege is provably false with even low effort research. Claiming Black folks suddenly have some strange privilege is also probably false, and though the article doesn't mention it, I'd be willing to bet most of the people casting stones in this story are white.

I went to a school with similar demographics and had a similar experience hearing the N-word. I'm not sure if the culture there has changed but it definitely seems to be more taboo nationwide now.

That school still had integrating to do. The black kids and the white kids didn't mix, and most of the AP classes were nearly entirely white. I wish more effort were focused towards solving the structural issues of racial equality.

The NY Times accidentally exposed this whole charade when they attempted to justify McNeil's firing by saying "intent doesn't matter".

People immediately started pointing out all the instances where another NY Times writer (Nikole Hannah-Jones) has used the N-word. Many of those instances are tweets that she has only very recently deleted: https://web.archive.org/web/20210211163617/https://twitter.c...

Yeah, I'm also Gen X and have noticed the same. I have a hard time comprehending incidents like this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54107329

(professor suspended for saying a Chinese word mistaken for the epithet, in context that clearly identified what he was saying, on video)

I mean, its not even ironic how racist (against Chinese) the response to that was :(

I always found it amusing listening to my Chinese colleagues chat, because it always sounded they were talking about "n**as" and "young hoes." They were tickled pink when I explained this. I forgot what phrase they were saying that I heard as the latter but I remember it being very common in conversation.

There's also a long funny history with the use of the word "niggardly" (which means "stingy" and is in no way related to the racial epithet):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word...

Still, Aziz Ansari has a hilarious bit about that ("Umm, you could have just said cheap or stingy.")

I mean, perhaps it was used in the past in a straightforward manner, but using that word today almost sounds a bit like the equivalent of "Look I'm not saying the N-word but haha it sounds exactly like the N-word so I can get away with it wink wink." It's like the "I'm not touching you!" game that 7 year old siblings play.

Sure, but this is an effect of people getting upset about it.

Start from any perfectly neutral expression X, and if people insist enough that it should not be used because it's offensive, then using it becomes a statement- either of indifference for the supposed offense or of active participation in it. The only way to use that expression innocently is to be completely unaware of the controversy around it- otherwise the expression has become tainted whatever your intention in using it.

How far should we push this? I was watching someone (an American because I guess it's relevant) narrate a game on stream and he wouldn't say "niggling" out loud.

YouTube for example demonetizes a video automatically if speech recognition detects slurs or other words advertisers don't like. I've seen people do the same thing for other words on the demonetization list.

Yes I watched many a YouTuber avoid saying the C-words (COVID/Corona) last year over fears it'll be flagged and demonetised.

> (professor suspended for saying a Chinese word mistaken for the epithet, in context that clearly identified what he was saying, on video)

It's even more ironic: he was teaching a class on international communication, and used it as an example of how you shouldn't jump to judgment of people from other cultures/languages. Cue his students doing just that.

Maybe as a society we shouldn't focus too much on what those under the drinking age think of as offensive. If they are your target audience, sure, you'll need to pander, but for most, it really is only as consequential as you make it.

I honestly don't think our norms have changed much, which is backed up in a few studies. I think, more than anything else, we've decided that outrage is worth attention. Thanks ad revenue.

But it's not just those under the drinking age who were offended. If you read the whole story it sounds like he was fired in part because some of his black colleagues at the New York Times also said they were offended and that they would no longer be willing to work with him.

Sometimes you pull a short straw and end up with shitty coworkers. I've worked with groups of people that were uniformly high functioning and understanding, and other groups that dwelled on political positioning and avoided work at all costs. Happens in every industry, some more than others.

The New York Times is a highly influential newspapers, and who draws the short straw at that workplace and why is capital-p Politics.

Do you keep in your mind that their joutnalists have a figurative gun to their head when you are reading their articles? No? Maybe you should.

Big, multinational, influential companies are just as likely to have shitty cultures or teams as any other company in my experience.

As far as the gun to the head, every major news organization as of now survives on viewership, not quality. I always keep in mind that the point of EVERY published news article is not to disseminate information, it is to collect eyeballs.

I think if you are white, you can engage with this entirely as an intellectual debate, or think of it as not a big deal.

It's easier then to forget that it's a word still used regularly by people committing violent hate crimes against Black folks, and those cheering them on.

I think as a society we should always strive to be objective, especially when accusing someone of wrong-doing and, subsequently damaging their lively-hood. Yes, Black Americans have life experiences that tie extreme emotion to this word, but I think we can recognize that without losing sight of objectivity.

There is a reason we don't allow police officers with personal involvement to investigate crimes, and why it's generally frowned upon for employers to date their employees. It's the same reason why we shouldn't let the most subjectively affected decide intent in this instance.

intent may be a mitigating factor for some, but the harm should be judged by those harmed, should it not? If they can't speak to the harm, who can?

As a society, we have decided intent matters, and as a result, enshrined it in law. We consider intent in situations where people are killed, I think we can do the same when some feelings are hurt.

I think that's basically what I said? I'm not sure I'm getting your point.

My cousin (immigrant from Pakistan) was trying to set up a housing arrangement with tiny houses for homeless people in New Orleans East. At one of the planning meetings in the local library, a (Black) resident stood up and said "What it feels like is you're trying to dump them all on the n****s in New Orleans East". I was appalled that my cousin would be framed that way, and quite frankly I'm more appalled that I'm not allowed to criticize this framing because repeating the language that was used even to criticize it starts this whole other fire.

(At a later meeting that was set up by the local councilman to use him as a punching bag he was told to "take his tiny houses back to Pakistan" with him and that "Donald Trump was President now" by a bunch of people I really doubt voted for Trump if they did vote). I've never been so happy to see someone lose an election in my life.

You just criticized the framing without repeating the language.

Yes, but in written form as opposed to verbally it doesn't have the negative pressure I felt was being applied upon my cousin.

"The N word" is the verbal equivalent of asterisks.

In my experience black people are way more rational about this stuff than white people.

Pew research has also confirmed this, it is mostly very wealthy progressives who are the most offended.

I suspect that it is used 1000x more often by black “folks” committing crimes against other black “folks”. Also, black is not a proper noun.

According to the author's version of events his colleagues were offended by a description that was inaccurate to point of falsified (again, according to the author), and their outrage was conveyed by someone who may have been looking for excuses to get rid of him for years.

Perhaps they would have been offended by his actual words, but it seems at least plausible that if they read and believed his version of events they would no longer be offended. It also seems potentially plausible that their outrage was exaggerated by the NYTimes lawyer.

I'm not defending his colleagues (or him), just responding to the GP comment's suggestion that ignoring the complaints of those under the drinking age might not be relevant.

Part of the problem is that it’s okay to say those words and make money off those words, if you’re part of the in-group. But if you’re not part of it, then it’s forbidden. This duality prolongs misuse. )do as I say, not as I do)

I agree epithets are uncouth and should be avoided. BUT I think they should be avoided by EVERYONE. And anyone who uses them freely should face scorn.

There are epithets for just about any group. I’m inclined to think all the in-groups denounce internal use of the derogatory terms. For example the R-word. I doubt it’s welcomed to be used internally.

That said I would make an exception for meta usage. Nothing should be so toxic it cannot be uttered in any context.

I think this is completely wrong. Use of charged words is governed by Trust. You have to trust the speaker that they are not using the word in a hurtful way - that they are either using it in jest, or for historical purposes, or for meta purposes.

However, if there is no trust between the audience and speaker, almost any use can be misunderstood. In the particular example from this article, it's not that hard to imagine that him repeating the description the girl gave, but replacing 'the N word' with 'n*r' was not an attempt to be gratuitously shocking or even making fun of their use of more PC language (and not, as I do believe his intention was, an attempt to clarify what had been literally said). They already didn't trust his judgment on issues of race, and they had no idea of his vast experience and institutional standards of when it is acceptable to use this word.

Another note is that, when you don't know what level of trust there is between your audience and you, it's better to err on the side of caution. For example, I don't think it would have been smart of me to use the full word here, because the HN audience doesn't know me and I haven't established my well meaningness and care with such matters. In fact, even if I had established such a reputation, it would likely be a bad idea, since HN is also constantly visited by many first time viewers who would be unlikely to know of said reputation and may well take my use of it as being needlessly hurtful or careless.

This is true for all groups, though: black, white, Asian, gay, Romani, Irish, Jewish, Catholic -- all of them. And it's a matter of degree. I'm pretty sure a white guy in Appalachia doesn't like being called a cracker (or maybe that's one of the C words) by other white guys in Appalachia, but he really doesn't like hearing this word come out of the mouth of a black person or a coastal, urban white person, or a tree hugger or whatever. And this isn't a new thing, either. It's just that people are more vocal in their irritation. People act like this is some new invention. It's not. People have never liked hearing people in some group who they feel has unearned power over them use the epithets that encapsulate and symbolize this relationship. Maybe it's wrong, but it's a common feature of people generally.

I’m not disagreeing with you but I would say that to make this less prevalent the in-group should also shun its use internally. If you sell something as part of popular culture, don’t be surprised if you see it used in popular culture.

This is a poor example, even here you are free to say "cracker" but you do not say "n-word". I'm not either, there is so much fear even in this thread about using that word because the fallout is unknown.

I would say that this thread is proof enough that we all live in fear of using this word even while using it in meta discussions.

I said it was a matter of degree. The point I was making is that it is universally true that people don't like to hear people from groups who they feel oppress them use those words that symbolize this oppression but they don't mind as much (though they still do mind) hearing these words used by people in their own group. The n-word is an example of this. Is this pattern more pronounced with the n-word? Sure, but the degree and length of the oppression experienced by black people at the hands of white people in the US is quite different from that experienced by hillbillies. And my point in choosing the term "cracker" was just to pick an example from the other side of the skin tone divide in the US, because the people complaining about how unfair it is that some people can say the n-word and they can't are typically from this demographic. I figure this example might hit close enough to home that they'd see my point.

> Part of the problem is that it’s okay to say those words and make money off those words, if you’re part of the in-group. But if you’re not part of it, then it’s forbidden

Come now. Surely you can call your father "my old man", "that codger", "the dotard"; and call your wife "the ball and chain", "that ol' battle-axe"; but you will take offense if strangers and friends did that? Even when you call your father and wife these names in loving jest. This hangup in understanding who is allowed use of a word is perplexing, it's almost like a reflexive obtuseness.

I always say "the N word", because the word itself is so ugly to me, as are all racial epithets. There was an incident where someone use the word "niggardly" meaning stingy, and somebody took pearl-clutching offense, and the original speaker retorted that he wasn't going to censure himself because of someone else's stupidity. Amen to that!

> Come now. Surely you can call your father "my old man", "that codger", "the dotard"; and call your wife "the ball and chain", "that ol' battle-axe"; but you will take offense if strangers and friends did that?

This isn't the same comparison. Everyone (baring the obvious exceptions) has a father that they could make words with, or could have a spouse to do the same. These examples are not the same as there being a word you must never say, in any context whatsoever, based on the circumstances of your birth.

> These examples are not the same as there being a word you must never say, in any context whatsoever, based on the circumstances of your birth.

But there is no such word. The NYT itself uses the N word in certain contexts, but not in others. The context has nothing to do with the color of the reporter's skin ("race"). However, using the word while discussing with teenagers (who aren't typically very good with nuance) who were already concerned about your opinions on race (so already somewhat hostile and likely to misinterpret your words) is a faux pas, an error in judgement.

Ok that explains the teenagers’ equally poor comprehension of the situation, but, critically, it doesn’t explain the NYTs reverting to being a teenager when evaluating the exchange.

The NYT had previously examined the complaint and found it didn’t meet whatever criterium they had. Now all of a sudden they are become the teenager incapable of mature reason and discussion.

That may well be down to the NYT wanting to fire one of the salary negotiators stirring up trouble. It may also be related to him refusing to play the story the way they wanted, which did seem to explode it quite a bit.

From my perspective (not an American, but an Haitian) I think it's based on how much you trust the well meaning of the person behind it. The current social climate is very charged from an outside perspective as privilege is perceived being tied down to ethnicity (For us it is wealth which was correlated to skin color, but not so much nowadays).

Our own translation 'nèg' is pretty much synonym to person or dude. and it is widely used. But it does not have much connotation to the actual skin color of the person or his physical appearance. But it is still very uncomfortable to hear the French 'nègre' as this has a widely demeaning connotation (French colonization and slavery).

And I think that is why the actual restriction took place. If you're black and say the N word, it is unlikely to be demeaning, but if you're caucasian, there is a lot of past events that is not in your favor.

P.S. not a native English speaker.

For anyone to use it as part of their everyday vocabulary would be very problematic for them. This journalist uttered it in asking for clarification. “Did the person actually say ‘literal quote’?”

It’s like being offended by being asked by an investigator to describe a personal crime. Of course reviewing the trauma is not pleasant, but it may be necessary to establish facts. “Did they do this to you; what did you say to them, how did they respond, etc”

You're still ignoring the problem of trust. If I am explicitly avoiding a word but you chose to repeat what I'm saying but explicitly use it, this can be taken as lack of care or even explicit hostility if there is a lack of trust.

To exaggerate the situation greatly, imagine a black man filing a harassment complaint with a white sheriff in the deep south. The black man is saying "they called me a racial epithet", to which the sheriff replies "you mean they called you a n*r?". Do you think the black man would be unjustified in feeling more uncomfortable and not being sure that the sheriff is not trying to demean him?

> R-word

I'd like to buy an "E".

also, as Stephen Fry famously said, “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

That quote always bothered me. Does that mean that Fry doesn't care about other people's feelings? He sounds like an a-hole.

The unbridgeable gap here is that the speaker of a phrase cannot with 100% certainty know whether a phrase will cause offense - "being offended" lives in the listener's mind. So we have to fall back to a "reasonable person" presumption. To do otherwise is to cede all control of public conversation to people who wield bad-faith claims of offense as a weapon.

If I say something, and have a good-faith belief that no one would be offended by it, and 99.99% of people agree that it was not an offensive statement, but one person claims to be offended by it - should I be forced to apologize under pain of being branded an "asshole"?

For the sake of argument let's say I'm offended by your "just asking questions" style statement that "Fry doesn't care about other people's feelings". Do you think it would be reasonable for you to apologize to me or retract your "question"?

I agree with you but i think Fry said it poorly and too many people are using this quote.

In the professional office environment this is exactly how it works. There is no "reasonable person" because it only takes 1 to go to HR.

It does serve a purpose. It announces to everyone in their vicinity that this fragile human is deficient and should only be interacted with via great caution.

edit: I don't understand the downvotes here. Is it considered poor manners to point out that people don't get to control how people perceive them?

Not 100% sure why you were being down voted.

Maybe you should state more explicitly the premise, which is that if you are easily offended you might have a weak mind. I think it is reasonable to discuss this point, as it may have some merit.

Something similar recently happened in my kids school district.

In a staff meeting they were talking about what books were and were not allowed to be taught from. A teacher brought out a book and said roughly "So this book, written by a black author, stocked in our school library I can't teach in class because it contains the word n**."

Cue rich white people fighting over who was the most offended by this in our school district that is is ~1% black, and most of whom have fled nearby schools that were majority latinx.

>I still find it quite bizarre that the mere utterance of the epithet, even in a sentence like "You should never call someone a <racial epithet> because that is extremely offensive" is considered itself racist by younger people.

It isn't, it is found offensive by crazy people.

This situation is very similar to what caused the chief communications officer at Netflix to get fired: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/business/media/jonathan-f...

I agree with your take on intent mattering and I'm of a similar age. I suppose some of the backlash is to remove plausible deniability of dog whistling, but it's gone further than I think is reasonable. Besides, an honest person will apologise unreservedly when called out on accidental usage, whereas a dog whistling racist will tend to backtrack and mumble excuses.

Anyway, you can still say a lot of harmful stuff without using a specific word if you want. I don't see the point.

> I recall hearing about a young popular YouTuber about a year or so ago who was accused of being racist simply for singing along to the lyrics of a popular rap song.

Oh it gets sillier than that.

"The rapper invited the woman, who identified herself only as "Delaney", to sing M.A.A.D City during his set at the Hangout Festival in Alabama.

But Kendrick stopped her after she repeatedly used the N-word - which is heard multiple times in his song.

As the crowd reacted angrily, Kendrick told her: "You gotta bleep one single word."

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44209141

It’s a power play. Having a word that you can say, but others, under penalty of termination and ostracism, dare not utter, demonstrates that you have some power over them and raises your status. (Some people don’t grasp this dynamic and take the stated rational for the prohibition at face value.)

This article has the best summary I've seen. It has less to do with the academic usage of a slur and more the arrogance and forcing everyone to agree with your POV and telling them how they should feel. It wasn't simply an utterance but their unwillingness to listen to opposing views. As well as some allegations that the n-word had been used much more casually by the same offenders at other times. It makes the academic argument seem disingenuous.

https://defector.com/mike-pesca-slate-suspended/

The only thing that is disingenuous is this argument. It has nothing to do with arrogance and everything to do with virtue signaling and fascism. Telling people how they should feel and unwillingness to listen to opposing views goes both ways.

The easy way to tell that it’s disingenuous? Search this on Google:

site:nytimes.com "nigger"

Appearing in print in his same publication as recently as 2018, 2019, and even December of 2020. So it was fine to print in appropriate context before he said it, and after he said it, but that particular week it was racist and unforgivable. Pretty clear what’s really going on here.

Yes, it is clear.

A cultural moment that is causing a re-evaluation on how the word is treated.

Dismissing it as "virtue signaling and fascism" is a cheap way to avoid the actual debate.

What is the actual debate? The magic n-word Im so offended by the sound fainting couch crowd seems to only be using it as an excuse to go after people they already don't like. Here's Joe Biden using the n-word in a quote yet not a peep from the re-evaluators of this cultural moment.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9146840045

Pesca and McNeil were not quoting someone else. Biden probably wouldn't get away with even a direct quote in 2021 but this was 36 years ago and it was to impugn someone for racist gerrymandering. A commenter on that article actually sums it up nicely:

https://defector.com/mike-pesca-slate-suspended/?commentID=f...

It's not the "magic n-word", it's a destructive epithet used against an entire race of people over generations.

The debate is over what, if any, place the word has in our world, whether it's ever OK to say, and what types of usage we should tolerate.

I'd also point out that there was a lot of anger, debate and incrimination over Biden's past racial issues during the primary, and continued anger today over his history.

He was only able to survive past the primary because, whatever his history, he had strong alliances, and a wealth of trust, within specific communities of Black Americans who were willing to forgive his past.

I don’t think you read my comment. The NY Times is still using it in print in the same context. This was virtue signaling and fascism. A debate involves engaging with another party in good faith, not conspiring to get them fired before a conversation even happens. That is a cheap way to avoid the actual debate.

All the uses I see are direct quotes, archival from the 19th century or a discussion of censoring huckleberry finn.

I think if you place the word in a bigger context that many people just seem to realizing, is that racism, particularly against black people in the US is still common. In fact, in some circles it seems to be becoming ok to be openly racist. People are sensitive, sometimes overly sensitive, because we are not in some post racism utopia.

There's also been an increase in violent hate crimes. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/16/935439777/fbi-report-bias-mot...

I studied free expression in grad school and worked on advocacy in the tech space related to free expression, it's a topic I'm qualified to teach, and I have a lot of theoretical and practical experience to share with students. However, out of the most basic sense of self-preservation I would never consider teaching the topic and barely delve into it, even when teaching tech policy. I think the students are worse off for it, but it's not worth taking the career risk.

What is free expression and where can I read more about it?

Broader take on free speech to encompass more forms of communication more-or-less. Consent of the Networked by Rebecca MacKinnon is a very good book on the subject vis-a-vis tech/regulation/etc.

Some more context:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/behind-the-scenes-of...

I get the impression that this guy was a bit of a jerk as well, and his response ultimately turned what could have been a short and easily forgotten news cycle into him burning his bridges at the Times.

You're right, it didn't really get to the point until midway through the third part. If you get through all of it, the message is that NYT leadership opportunistically used a tabloid's hit piece on a cold story about an issue the NYT themselves claims they had already internally addressed as an excuse to oust a labor organizer.

Is there a difference between calling someone a word and using the word to make a point about that word? More importantly, is it relevant for me as a non-POC to dictate how this word affects someone else?

Singling out a student as a target of an insult is nothing like the situations under discussion. If a teacher said "How would Ronnie feel if I accused him of fucking his sister" the biggest problem isn't the use of the word "fucking."

> Is there a difference between calling someone a word and using the word to make a point about that word?

In my opinion, yes, absolutely, there is a gigantic difference. Though I certainly understand that times change and a large segment of the population no longer feels that way.

Yes, yes there is. And that is your own prerogative to decide how much you want to self censor.

> I still find it quite bizarre that the mere utterance of the epithet, even in a sentence like "You should never call someone a <racial epithet> because that is extremely offensive" is considered itself racist by younger people.

The idea that utterance of a word is offensive isn't uncommon. For example, in the US the C-word is almost completely taboo in common speech. In some other English-speaking countries it is just another swear word, perhaps more offensive than the F-word, but not in a completely different category.

And then there is Scotland, where they claim it to be a term of endearment

It's peak virtue signaling and the low quality of communication of the internet. Maybe a bit of cultural effect from harry potter. The negative connotations of the word itself are only a portion of it.

I'm sure once this fashion is done academics will analyze it to death. I wonder how they'll mention the word on their titles though. Some future populist politician will also take the findings and abuse them as well.

I kinda wish people in those racial classes for whatever <epithet> represents could find a way to instead of blacklist the word which ultimately gives it more power to embrace it.

Say BLM for instance if they had people of all colors saying I'm an <epithet>... in some sort of markting videos... If you had the word become a different meaning instead of "stupid" lesser race, it can become: "strong, empowered" person of color with a strong identity.

Example: I watched the history of swear words (excellent show btw) and one very controversial word is: Bitch.

It's gone from bad to very bad to good to empowering to some women, and there's honestly a million ways and connotations to using the word.

Gay is another word that I think has become more powerful to the community for using it in more positive ways.

A word that cannot even be uttered becomes the pen-ultimate swear word for those who want to hurt someone. If it means as little as damn or shoot or crap - then it loses it's sting and I personally think we get closer to more racial tolerance.... but that's just me.

How do we get this accomplished? No effing clue and I wouldn't even want to broach the subject being a white guy who supports BLM and wants to be an advocate and not cast out. Like the author I'm autistic too and have that empathetic to a cause but bad at reading an audience or how bad things I say can have an effect.

And yet everyone gives a pass to popular actors like Leonardo Dicaprio who use racial epithets in movies.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853728/characters/nm0000138

You're being sarcastic, correct? (these days it's hard to tell)

Dicaprio plays a brutal slave owner in that movie.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but Dicaprio was initially unwilling to use the n-word in the movie. It was only at the behest of his (black) costars that he did[0].

There's similar conversations about racially charged plays and the white actors who play racists that come up pretty often.

[0]: https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/how-samuel-l-jackso...

He was accused by multiple people of racist and uncomfortable comments beyond using the N word.

“I got about half way through the first one and was just wondering "I still have no idea what this is all about."”

He says what it’s all about in the first paragraph, and by 100 words in we have an outline of the whole write-up.

Huh? He mentions nowhere in his first paragraph, or first couple paragraphs for that matter, the reason for why he was fired, which seems like a rather important detail.

>He says what it’s all about in the first paragraph

I for one would not consider the paragraph:

"On February 5 this year, one week after an article about me appeared in the Daily Beast, The New York Times announced that I would be leaving."

a description of what it's all about. For what it's worth I already know the story, but if I didn't I certainly wouldn't have a clue from that paragraph.

>and by 100 words in we have an outline of the whole write-up.

The article is incredibly long-winded and has a difficulty getting to the point, in honor of which I should continue my comment, of which we are currently in the preambulatory phase, so yeah anyway, by 128 words we know:

that the document will be in 4 parts, the first part is the introduction and we're in it!

Something happened on January 28th!

What Happened During the Investigation? (there was an investigation of something!!, what was it, someone got murdered, we don't know yet, we're in the introduction, but hey this guy was the lead guy on reporting covid 19 pandemic and he started as a copyboy in 1976, imagine!)

What Happened in Peru? (something happened in Peru - was this after the murder investigation, don't know yet.)

but hey I guess we're done with the introduction so now we can find out what it's about!

Nope, we're still in the introduction. There are 963 more words were he tells you his reasons for writing on medium, gets flamboyant with the language about government corruption and gives examples of how words matter and he hates being misquoted etc. etc. I admit I didn't read very closely because it was uninteresting and as a consequence I find myself incapable of quoting him accurately.

so now - a thousand words in he ends the introduction with:

"I’ll tell my story in three further parts:"

This guy is not Dickens or Twain, and his rambling narrative is as interesting as someone whining about how their wife doesn't understand their drinking embedded in the middle of a TPS report. But hey 1000 words in and I have a good feeling we're gonna find out what happened with what I have to assume was a murder and some sort of freakout in Peru!! this is going to be epic!!!

He now lists the three further parts:

What Happened on Jan. 28 and Thereafter?

What Happened during the August 2019 Times Investigation?

What Happened in Peru?

Now this is truly WTF territory for me - is he going to list what he is going to write about at the end of each section?

So then he writes a couple hundred more words - he says he remembers what happened in Peru because of emails, but wait, before we find out about what happened in Peru time for a look backwards about being interviewed on a TV program where he said some stuff he thought might get him in trouble, but it didn't I guess because it seems like something else that happened in Peru got him in trouble. Oh man, I am starting to worry this is going to turn out not to be a murder story after all..

actually I don't think the margins of this comment box are vast enough for me to recount all the details of how he comes to actually reveal whatever happened in Peru! and the investigation, which here we are nearly 1500 words and he hasn't actually said what that was about either.

This guy tiptoeing around the subject is weird, is he trying to build suspense. You'd think he was trying to build suspense, and it was going to be the story about a voodoo cult, sex hippies, and a gun running cult! But it's so boring, it can't be that.

As one keeps reading and nothing happens there starts to form the suspicion that in the end Peru will be some boring snooze-fest, like maybe he used the n-word or something and got fired.

I write here instead of edit - when I say he's not Twain or Dickens I used them as my examples because they are two of my favorite authors and I've been rereading them quite a bit, also they are verbose and perhaps given to rambling.

This guy, a journalist, isn't Hemingway either. Which is a pity.

on edit: I also notice I expected him to have a couple cults in his story. Can't have too many cults, nor too many words in your comments describing how someone has to many words in their version of events attempting to win the public to their side.

You should have had at least one more cult in there.

The Thrill Kill Kult aren't returning my calls anymore.

That was entertaining.

I’m not defending the organization of the piece, which I agree is less than optimal, as well as super redundant. But’s it’s also an exaggeration to suggest that he doesn’t tell us what it’s about at the start: it’s about how he got canned because of an article in the Beast.

No - he refers to what it's about, and if you already know the story you are able to understand immediately. But it doesn't say he got fired. It doesn't even say his departure from the NYT was because of the article in the Beast. On a blank slate, it's possible the article in the Beast leaked his recent terminal diagnosis.

"On February 5 this year, one week after an article about me appeared in the Daily Beast, The New York Times announced that I would be leaving."

I wonder where he's leaving, is it Peru?

facetiousness aside, yes it seems likely the article is about him getting fired because of something negative in the media. 1500 words later you still don't know what this negative thing is! I think it's reasonable that someone reading it says at that point: "1500 words in I still don't know what it's about!" which is basically what your initial objection was to.

In fact if you've gone through all that and still don't know what he got fired for or even (I would have to read the first half again to make sure of this next part) if he got fired I think it might be reasonable to start to doubt if your first assumption that he got fired due to a negative article in the media was in fact correct!

He's beaten around the bush so much that he's managed to wear a deep groove about it, and still managed to not touch the bush at all!

It's so bad it's comical, I'm tempted to rewrite famous speeches and articles from the past in this new style.

on edit: removed an extra word - hundred.

Nobody is actually offended by this sort of stuff, it's just one more weapon in the culture war.

Perhaps so, but it sure seems to be a weapon that's used indiscriminately. It's used against (almost[1]) everyone it possibly can be used against.

That is, this guy wasn't someone that the woke were perpetually looking for a chance to attack, and he finally slipped up and they got him. This guy was just someone that the weapon could be used against, and so it was used against him.

[1] I presume that there are people who would not be destroyed for using certain racial epithets. Rappers are certainly an exception (or else they just don't care). Politicians that the woke like seem to also be exempt, but the right tries to use the same weapon against them. But the weapon doesn't seem to work when the right wields it...

I think that to a great extent this is a matter of trust in the speaker. When an audience trusts the speaker's opinions, they can easily accept the use of problematic language as benign.

But when the speaker is not trusted, it's easy to take what to the speaker seems like benign use of a word the wrong way. For example, the speaker here believed they were just clarifying the use of a word, to distinguish between someone saying the literal phrase 'the N word' vs someone literally saying n**r. The speaker knows themselves to be above reproach and very conscious of their use of language, having often engaged in debate about appropriate VS inappropriate use of this word, with careful consideration etc. They are used to speaking to audiences who sees them in this way.

However, one day he finds himself doing this with an audience who doesn't know much about their antiracist credentials, and who is weary of him as someone who seems to be pretty politically incorrect. They are probably primed to see him as an establishment old white man, who is by virtue of this alone usually, in their (real or just imagined) experience, on the wrong side of history on this issue. One of them is probing him on a sensitive issue, and is careful to say 'the N word' since that is what is proper in their view. And here this man comes and feels the need to use exactly the word that should be avoided, perhaps condescendingly or because he just isn't aware of how hurtful it seems to them.

None of the parties is truly right or wrong here. The journalist didn't mean to cause any harm, and didn't think he could possibly be construed as meaning so. The kids don't trust his intentions are not easily convinced by nuanced debate. He should have known better than to use his usual discourse. They should accept that he knows better than them these topics and should know who to trust and who not to.

Note that this is exactly the reason why rap is one of the very few places where use of the N word has persisted. Rappers were trusted by their audience, and their use of it continues to be trusted in general. But if Sean Hannity used it, who would believe that he was not being malicious?

> That is, this guy wasn't someone that the woke were perpetually looking for a chance to attack

You sure about that? The opening of part one goes like this.

> I don't think I'm an asshole, but [describes some asshole behaviors].

To be clear, he sounds like an ass much like Theo de Raadt, Linus Torvalds, and Ulric Drepper are asses. Those people are my kind of jerk and I don't mind it so much since their signal-to-noise ratio is so high. But plenty of people do mind. He very well could have been painting a target on his back all that time.

>> But the weapon doesn't seem to work when the right wields it...

These are weapons of the left. Your supporters have to have the same mindset for them to work.

Policing speech is a weapon for everyone. How often did you hear swear words on TV 20 years ago? Do you think it was the left keeping 'fuck' out of year shot of any impressionable teens? Did the Dixie Chicks get canceled by the left for saying that they didn't support the war in Iraq?

Fair points. But now we have professors getting fired. We have presidents getting canceled. Maybe it's just gotten more extreme.

While speech suppression is a weapon that both sides are more than happy to wield, are you familiar with the history of parental advisory labeling on speech in music? That was the left, specifically Al Gore's wife Tipper, that was responsible for keeping 'fuck' out of earshot of teens in music. TV and The Dixie Chicks are a different situation (although notice that now they are no longer called the Dixie Chicks, and not because of a conservative backlash.)

At the basic level, does this even have anything to do with a "culture war"? More like it's simply a social weapon, apparently capable of moving the New York Times, being handed to teenagers. Of course some of them are going to pull that lever to test what they can do!

Of course people are actually offended by it.

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