"Barack...he's talking down to black people...telling niggers how to behave"

Maybe, like you, they didn’t consider it newsworthy?

ETA: or, what he said.

Can I quote you on that the next time someone on the right says something like that?

If they’re black.

What a crock. I don’t know what world you live in, but in my world, the same rules apply to everyone. If we want to stop using “nigger”, then everyone needs to stop using that word. If not, then so be it.

This, in my opinion, is the crock. I think there’s a justified double standard.

Eh. If Blacks can use it in a non-offensive manner, than Whites can, too. That doesn’t mean it’s always non-offensive, but if we are all to live in the same society, then we need to all adhere to the same rules. Your kind of thinking is what led to separate but equal-- different rules depending on the color of one’s skin.

None of my friends talk like that. Must hang with a different crowd.

When the Reverend Jesse Hymietown Jackson isn’t busy banging out bastards he makes his money pimping the race card. His gravitas would fit in a thimble.

No they can’t.

We’re not talking about laws here, just social perceptions of language.

Why not?

Look up the meaning of “led”.

Yeah, I hadn’t actually seen the video before I made that comment. I had read a Yahoo news article that implied the meaning I used earlier. It misquoted him as saying “Barack Obama is talking down to black people…he’s going to get his nuts chopped off”.

Now that I’ve actually seen the video I realize my mistake. That really was a monumentally stupid thing to say.

Because it’s racist when white people say it and it’s not racist when black people say it. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand.

I had a friend while I was in college, a white girl, who would call her black friends “nigga” all the time. She wasnt racist. I understand that it’s not all that unusual, if you’re kind of accepted into the crowd.

Oh, unless you meant it’s racist when white people say it except when they aren’t.

Says you. You’re not the authority on what is or what is not racist. In fact, that “rule” is itself racist, by the standard definition of the term.

Because it’s wrong.

We could go about this until the cows come home… mmm, black cow… but I don’t agree with that description of what Dio said. The bottom line is this, in my view - and this is how it’s always been - is that context matters, and the identity of the person speaking is part of context. You can say that’s unfair, but I don’t think it really is.

Of course context matters. But the color of one’s skin isn’t the only context.

It’s the most important one, and honestly, I think complaining about the N-word double standard is just gamesmanship.

It certainly isn’t, which is part of why I say the identity of the speaker - which can include skin color but is a much, much bigger category. I’m sure you have seen other threads on this board where this issue was broached. Almost invariably, a white Doper will say something about how it’s okay for black people to call each other [nigger/nigga], and a black Doper will come along to explain that actually, plenty of black people are not okay with being called either term, particularly in polite conversation.

People don’t know how to use curses effectively. I think this comes down to the fact that most people are ignorant of the art of cursing. Jesse Jackson was being sarcastic. That’s not the same thing as glorifying the word in rap music. He’s making a point about Obama looking down on ‘niggers’. You know like Chris Rock’s “There are black people and there are niggers.”, kind of thing.

The thing about Hip Hop is a complete and total misdirection of the issue. They are completely unrelated. Jackson wasn’t glorifying the term, he was using it to denote derision.

I can’t tell if you’re agreeing with me or disagreeing with me. All I’m saying is that the word “nigger” is not automatically racist if it is uttered by a White person. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. Context matters.

Uh-huh… and has he at any time muttered that he was gonna cut Chris Rock’s nuts off (hmmph!) ?
Anyway, I (though white) reserve the right to say “nigger” or anything else, and I’ll face the repercussions, if any, on an incident-by-incident basis.