Dr. Laura's N-Word Rant: Radio Host Apologizes

[Sophus]

Because it's worth sharing...

"A young woman named Jamie called in last week, thoroughly broken-sounding. She choked through her first words, thanking Dr. Laura for taking her call and thanking God for letting her get through. When her husband does certain things in bed, she says, sentences dissolving into tears, “it reminds me of being molested when I was young.” She wants to get past it, to live a healthy life with her husband.

Dr. Laura has a question: “Why are you still crying about it?”

“Because it still bothers me, because I...” she starts to say before Dr. Laura interrupts.

“Oh whoa whoa whoa whoa!” she says. “Don’t give me the usual nonsense here.”"

[Thumpalumpacus]

I never once said people can't voice their opinion.  You were the one who brought up the First Amendment with regards to the community center.  My point was that if it applies there, it applies here.  As per your definition, the first amendment only applies to government agencies.  No government agency has denied her anything, just as no government agency has denied Imam Rauf anything.  If the First Amendment is a non issue with Dr. Laura, then it is a non issue with Rauf as well.  You can't have it both ways.

I'm not trying to, and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.  I'm saying that just as people have the right to protest a Muslim mosque at WTC, they also have the right to protest racial slurs from a radio personality.

(I brought up the First Amendment inRE the mosque as an Establishment and not free speech issue, which is what this is.)

Again, apologies for any misunderstanding.

I have no problem with you firing somebody for using nigger, as long as you treat all races equally.  If the word is off limits for whites at your place of business, it should be off limits to blacks as well.  If not you'd be guilty of racism in my opinion.

Absolutely.  I wouldn't differentiate between the speakers' skin colors if I heard that.

Dr. dipshit aside,  I just don't like our treatment of the word nigger.  It gives white people too much power. How long are we supposed to use the slave/master dynamic in dealing with race issues in America?  I've never been a slave, so I don't expect any special treatment due to slavery.  Likewise, I don't know any whites who have owned slaves so I don't expect any special concessions or apologies on their part.  We are all just people.  One hateful word is no worse or better than another. This tip toeing around nigger just cements our position of inferiority.  We will truly be equal when "cracker" or "white devil" is looked upon with the same scorn that "nigger" is.

I suspect that you and I are much more in agreement than you seem to think.  I don't carve out a special place for any epithet.  My only point was that her quitting isn't a First Amendment issue.  She has the right to say whatever she wishes on the subject.  The public has the right to speak out on her comments.  She didn't like what she heard, and quit.

[humblesmurph]

Thump,

Dr. Dipshit's treatment of that woman, and apparently her conduct in general, was/is deplorable.. I went off on a tangent.  I just saw a "nigger" thread and used it as an opportunity to express my disdain for the "nigger" double standard.   I didn't mean to come off as defending her.

[Sophus]

I guess they only have first Amendment rights on satellite radio.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger will debut a new, three-hour daily radio show on Sirius XM in January, according to an Associated Press report.
Much like Howard Stern before her, Schlessinger says that freedom of speech is what drew her to satellite radio.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, except that she never lost her freedom to speak her mind.

[Sophus]

Yeah, except that she never lost her freedom to speak her mind.

I suppose she thinks she won't be criticized on satellite radio, which might only prove true because no one with mere regular radio will tune into her show by mistake.

[Ihateyoumike]

I don't have a problem with any words in themselves. I don't think a person should ever get offended by a word alone. I personally see getting offended by the word "nigger" as not much different than a person getting offended when I say the word "shit." No one should reasonably be offended just by a word. However if I told someone, "you're a stupid piece of shit." I think there is reason for them to be upset, not because I said "shit" but because I obviously think lowly of the person. Likewise if I heard someone say to me, "you're a stupid nigger," I'd be offended by the sentence, not because of the word (actually, I wouldn't be offended at all, but it's more reasonable to be offended by the sentence than a word).

Whenever I hear people say something like, "When I hear people using word X it just makes them sound ignorant." I'm reminded of extremely snobbish French assholes in pre-Renaissance Europe calling those who used the word "beef" ignorant. Fuck 'em, I think it's far more ignorant for one to limit ones vernacular based on some ever changing list of "unacceptable" words. I can fucking see how using a fucking word too fucking much in fucking sentences can make a fucker look like a stupid fuck, but just choosing to use a word doesn't make a person ignorant. It's not the word choice that makes a person look ignorant, it's how they choose to use the words.

The FCC issues fines for using certain words at certain times in certain contexts... but no clear guidelines on what those are. So while a straight man can't say "fag" in the U.S. before 10pm on a cable show (without being fined), a gay man can use the word all they want. This isn't just the network doing it because they're practicing their own judgment, it's because a government agency will punish them if they don't follow some vague (and vacuous) guidelines. That is government censorship and abridging the freedom of speech. Sure they can still say it without being bleeped, but it's not really freedom when someone comes by and fines them for practicing their freedom of speech.

Usually this leads into how much should a government censor, so I'll just post my opinions on that right now: Preventing people from yelling "fire" in a crowded indoor area, I can understand. It will likely cause a stampede that will injure and even kill people. It's reasonable to fear fire in a place like a theatre, because fire can be very painful and even kill you and it's not unreasonable to think that a fire may have started. Now if a white person runs up to a crowd of black people and yells "NIGGERS" he/she is likely going to be the only person to get hurt if anyone gets hurt. Now I don't think it's right to beat down a cracker just because he/she's a racist asshole, I'm not going to protect someone from doing something to obviously invoke anger and likely an ass whooping on themselves.

Ultimately: If you have to check the color of the persons skin before you decide whether you should be offended or not, you shouldn't be offended. If you have to check the color of the persons skin to determine whether a person is allowed to say something or not, they should be allowed to say it.

This. Very much this.
Very, very well said.  

[Sophus]

To respond to Davin: I think it's all about context. Context is all that matters. One can very easily avoid using the "n word" and formulate something far more offensive in a sentence with words that are otherwise not considered taboo at all.

[Inevitable Droid]

What I find curious is that blacks started using the n-word at a time when the n-word was all but dead in public discourse.  I'm Italian and part of a fairly large Italian extended family.  I never hear any of my family members use the word "guinea" or "WOP" or "DAGO" at all, ever.  I've seen Italians depicted on TV or in movies making use of these words, but always derisively, as in, "that stupid guinea."  I have a vague recollection of this occurring on The Sopranos.  Yet at a time when public figures and journalists are going so far out of their way as to use the multi-syllable monstrosity, "African American," we have blacks using the n-word as a term of endearment.  I just find it curious.  I don't view it as a moral question, nor as a legal question, but as a psychological and perhaps a strategic or pragmatic one.  Why do it?  Why not just let the word die?  It was well on its way to only ever being heard among people who were defiantly racist.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I find it interesting that in your well-written post you referred to "the n-word" and not "nigger".  Certainly, in the context of this conversation, the word can be shorn of its perjorative overtone, right?

I mean, if we cannot say a word for fear of offense even when we are discussing how to attenuate the feelings which gave rise to the slur in the first place, is that not like saying "We must cure this cancer, but we may not look at the tumor"?

[Inevitable Droid]

I find it interesting that in your well-written post you referred to "the n-word" and not "nigger".  Certainly, in the context of this conversation, the word can be shorn of its perjorative overtone, right?

It can, yes.  But words like that don't fit the level of discourse I maintain in these threads.  If we were having a similar discussion about the f-word or the c-word, I would refer to them as the f-word or the c-word.  It has to do with how I present myself.  Using words like that is like wearing ripped jeans.  I try to be classier than that.

I mean, if we cannot say a word for fear of offense even when we are discussing how to attenuate the feelings which gave rise to the slur in the first place, is that not like saying "We must cure this cancer, but we may not look at the tumor"?

You know, until you raised the point, I really never thought about this, but I seriously don't avoid the kind of word we're discussing for fear of offending people, but rather, because I perceive such words as being the mark of the unsophisticated, the uneducated, or the unintelligent.  I consider such words beneath me.