How do you feel about non-black people using or being called the n-word?

There is a difference between ***** (ending in an -a) and ****** (ending in an -er). ***** (ending in an -a) is playful, while ****** (ending in an -er) is condescending.

 

wow.... freaking serious?? No negr0s nowadays are close to being a slave, not to mention the double standard there...

 

http://sourcefednews.com/court-case-puts-n-word-use-trial/

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/NY-case-puts-N-word-use-among-blacks-on-trial-4782124.php

article:

NEW YORK (AP) — In a case that gave a legal airing to the debate over use of the N-word among blacks, a federal jury has rejected a black manager's argument that it was a term of love and endearment when he aimed it at black employee.

Jurors awarded $30,000 in punitive damages Tuesday after finding last week that the manager's four-minute rant was hostile and discriminatory, and awarding $250,000 in compensatory damages.

The case against Rob Carmona and the employment agency he founded, STRIVE East Harlem, hinged on the what some see as a complex double standard surrounding the word: It's a degrading slur when uttered by whites but can be used at times with impunity among blacks.

But 38-year-old Brandi Johnson told jurors that being black didn't make it any less hurtful when Carmona repeatedly targeted her with the slur during a March 2012 tirade about inappropriate workplace attire and unprofessional behavior.

Johnson, who taped the remarks after her complaints about his verbal abuse were disregarded, said she fled to the restroom and cried for 45 minutes.

"I was offended. I was hurt. I felt degraded. I felt disrespected. I was embarrassed," Johnson testified.

The jury ordered Carmona to pay $25,000 in punitive damages and STRIVE to pay $5,000.

Outside court after her victory, Johnson said she was "very happy" and rejected Carmona's claims from the witness stand Tuesday that the verdict made him realize he needs to "take stock" of how he communicates with people he is trying to help.

"I come from a different time," Carmona said hesitantly, wiping his eyes repeatedly with a cloth.

"So now, now you're sorry?" Johnson said outside court, saying she doubted his sincerity and noting Carmona had refused to apologize to her in court last week. She said he should have been sorry on March 14, 2012, "the day when he told me the N-word eight times."

Her lawyer, Marjorie M. Sharpe, said she hoped the case sent a strong message to those who "have tried to take the sting out of the N-word. ... It's the most offensive word in the English language."

Carmona left the courthouse without immediately commenting, as did all eight jurors.

In a statement, STRIVE said it was disappointed but was exploring its options, including an appeal and looking forward to the "judicial process taking its entire course."

It also cited Johnson as a "prime example of the second chances that STRIVE provides to both its participants and nonparticipants alike."

It noted that Johnson, who was never a STRIVE participant, was employed there despite a previous conviction for grand larceny that required her to pay about $100,000 in restitution. The judge barred lawyers from telling jurors about the conviction.

In closing arguments, Sharpe had said Carmona's use of the word was intended to offend "and any evidence that defendants put forth to the contrary is simply ridiculous."

"When you use the word ****** to an African-American, no matter how many alternative definitions that you may try to substitute with the word ******, that is no different than calling a Hispanic by the worst possible word you can call a Hispanic, calling a homosexual male the worst possible word that you can call a homosexual male," Sharpe told jurors.

But Carmona's lawyers said the 61-year-old black man of Puerto Rican descent had a much different experience with the word. Raised by a single mother in a New York City public housing project, he became addicted to heroin in his teens and broke it with the help of drug counselors who employed tough love and tough language.

Carmona went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University before co-founding STRIVE in the 1980s. Now, most of STRIVE's employees are black women, his attorney, Diane Krebs, told jurors in her opening statement.

"And Mr. Carmona is himself black, as you yourselves can see," Krebs said.

In his testimony, Carmona defended his use of the word, saying he used it with Johnson to convey that she was "too emotional, wrapped up in her, at least the negative aspects of human nature."

Then he explained that the word has "multiple contexts" in the black and Latino communities, sometimes indicating anger, sometimes love.

Carmona said he might put his arm around a longtime friend in the company of another and say: "This is my ****** for 30 years."

"That means my boy, I love him, or whatever," he said.

He was asked if he meant to indicate love when he called Johnson the word.

"Yes, I did," he responded.

The controversy is a blemish on STRIVE, which has been heralded for helping people with troubled backgrounds get into the workforce. Its employment model, which was described in a CBS' "60 Minutes" piece as "part boot camp, part group therapy," claims to have helped nearly 50,000 people find work since 1984.

Sharpe told jurors that STRIVE's tough-love program cannot excuse Carmona's behavior.

"Well, if calling a person a ****** and subjecting them to a hostile work environment is part of STRIVE's tough love, then STRIVE needs to be reminded that this type of behavior is illegal and cannot be tolerated," she said.​

 

This reminds me of either an episode of Law and Order SVU or possible some true crime new show where they couldn't prosecute a female rapist because either the statutes or legal precedent only defined it as a male attacking a female. Basically that the law couldn't be easily applied because the demographics didn't match the previous cases. Not equating the N-word with rape; but there's an obvious workplace abuse here that singled-out the aggrieved party based on her race.

 

Good.....they shouldn't be using that word in any context any way.

Loving context my ass.

 

The more degrees you add to a "thing" the more complicated this world gets.

Life was never meant to be this complicated.

 

70% of black babies are born using medicaid and they complain about other races calling them names

 

Great; well, **** you too. Can we lock this thread now?

 

My mother told me something once, when I was a small boy, that I never forgot.

She said: "Boy, a n****r gon' always be a n****r. But not because he got to be. Remember that."

Unfortunately, there are still more than a few of us as black people in this country who suffer from a debilitatingly prolonged identity crisis.

There is a grudging consensus among black people (even those black people who don’t like or use it), that there is a tether, of sorts, in the use of the n-word to our history in this country. A history that, for both black people and non-black people alike, has been very difficult to reconcile.

A few years ago, I overheard my son (who was in high school at the time) in our garage with several of his friends (who, because of the community we lived in, were very diverse racially, but most of the half-dozen or so kids were Caucasian) laughing and telling off-color, “racist” jokes that had even a salty-mouthed veteran of the obscene such as myself turning a lovely shade of purple.

(The girls, by the way, were particularly graphic…go figure…)

After I’d clumsily gotten myself involved, they all finally reassured me that they were just carrying on conversations begun in school…part of their social studies classes on race relations and the like…

I remember one young girl telling me plainly that they all liked coming to Demarcus’ (my son) house to talk…she could never talk about things like this with her parents…

I realized that night that my son (and his friends) see the world much differently than I did.

Only natural, I suppose. Progress in anything takes time. Sometimes, the time it takes to happen is the best part of change. If you pay attention, it’s a lot like watching a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.

But I’d be naïve in saying that the baseline reason why those kids seem to be in a place where, if there are any serious racial issues that they have to work out they have the freedom to do so, wasn’t largely due to the fact that, economically, there was no appreciable difference between them.
Some of the more troubling social woes that seem to plague the black community do stem from economic disadvantage. Not, as often posited by those woefully misinformed and ignorant, by simple moral decay.

(I personally always found it a bit difficult to focus in school or anywhere else…between the violence and the hunger and the rot…)

At some point, as an American culture, there are some things that have to be universally unacceptable social behavior. The closest, most determinative factor in establishing what is and isn’t acceptable in a civilized society is conveyed through the commonality of language shared.

I can appreciate that some words tend to change in their meaning (even in their connotation) with the passage of time, and especially in a largely progressive country (socially) like America, but the word in question, for instance, does share a common thread in our country…and that thread is frayed, at best.

“N****r” binds as many negative emotions and thoughts to white Americans as it does to black Americans becasue that's all the word was ever intended to do.

There’s nothing remotely redeeming about the word in any context, in any permutation of its presentation, or in any sanitation of its presentation.

The use of the word has historically been to dehumanize and desensitize the party it’s directed at. And that party has been black people. If there are white people or Hispanic people or Asian people who would want to adopt that posture, I can’t say I’d understand why.

I’ve used the word from time to time in some intimate conversations with black people, and most of the time it was with venom. The few times I’ve uttered it among non-black people, it was always in an exploratory conversation, where I trusted and respected who I was speaking with, and could convey some semblance of truth and perspective to them.

It’s one of the things about Richard Pryor’s comedy that made it genius at the time, I feel: there’s a difference between being profane (as Pryor’s comedy often was) and being vulgar. Most of the time, young people can’t determine the difference, because their life experience is still relatively limited.

I’ve said all that to say that, ultimately, as a black man, we will all be better off if we leave the word “n****r” in the past, with the rest of the whips and chains and chattel slavery of this nation’s less noble parts of it history.

It’s the only way, I feel, we’ll ever get beyond some of the tensions of race relations that still exists.

Some things, I believe, are always right.
Some things, too, are always wrong….

 

What the hell does that have to do with anything except maybe the injustices that face black expectant mothers? Would you mind linking that stat?

 

Stat is legit per GWU, but Rudan still remains an *******.

 

Well

Why are you and I paying for the kids the Jamal's and Pedro's of the world can't/wont to take care of?

 

Because we were fortunate enough to be born in better circumstances which ensured we would grow up to have reasonable incomes, and can afford to preclude birth defects or other risks that might make them less productive adults. It's also inaccurate to assume that not being able to afford hospital expenses for childbirth ensures that the babes won't be taken care of. We pay for a hell of a lot of postmen and tax auditors' babies births, but no one b****es about that.

 

Thanks for the link.

 

Both of my children were born while my wife was on medicaid. No you can't call me or my wife names.

 

Which brings up the silliness of Rudan's post. Somehow if you need assistance for medical bills associated with child birth, then you deserve to be called names, and you should just be happy about it, and take it.