# Comedian gets the hook for using the N-Word **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 6, 2007, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250 "2007-09-06T15:28:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/21 "2007-09-07T15:12:14Z")
[QUOTE=LouisB] My point maybe wasn’t clear but what I was trying to say is that IF a word is deeply offensive, why do the very people who are supposedly offended by it use that very word at all? [/QUOTE] Countless groups of people do the same thing. Call it self-defense or a sense of humor if you like. The same word can mean different things when said by different people or in different situations, and this is no exception. To a lot of people, nigga and nigger mean very different things. And I don’t think **pizzabrat** was calling you racially biased. The bias was about the issue of “why can black people use the word?” ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/22 "2007-09-07T15:51:06Z")
I really don’t think it’s a black/white concrete issue with a general set of rules and protocol. The most accurate generalization you could make the word “nigger” is that it’s a slur. And a participant in polite society doesn’t go around using slurs comfortably. Other than that, you just have to take individuals as individuals, which is why it’s pointless to try to get us to extrapolate the intentions of your friends and the random blacks you’ve overheard using the term. Maybe (probably) they’re just crass, boorish people who don’t give much thought to what they say in general, and it’s not more complex than that. ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/23 "2007-09-07T16:44:37Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] My point maybe wasn’t clear but what I was trying to say is that IF a word is deeply offensive, why do the very people who are supposedly offended by it use that very word at all? [/QUOTE] It’s all about black people isn’t it? 😛 When I go to gay events the comedian nearly always uses the following words: homos, queens, fairies, and fags. Especially the latter. I have Arabic friends who call each other “terrorists” or “Araaybs” (poking fun at the offensive mispronunciation of the word by many people in the U.S). If you were to say that to them and you were not apart of their group, they’d probably be offended. Unfortunately pizzabrat’s comment about _Black Enterprise_, a magazine which caters to educated, high middle class blacks, went underappreciated. You’re more likely to find blacks like Obama, Cosby, Winfrey subscribing to _Black Enterprise_ than you would someone like Lil’ Jon or Eddie Griffin. The pulling of Eddie Griffin wasn’t an attempt to shield the audience from the “N-word” it was probably because no one in the audience thought it was funny. This may surprise you, but most educated, affluent blacks don’t sit outside with a forty ounce peeling off the N-word with their homeboys. Sorry to disappoint. - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/24 "2007-09-07T16:58:26Z")
[QUOTE=Honesty] It’s all about black people isn’t it? 😛 [/QUOTE] That quote is **LouisB** ’s, not mine. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/25 "2007-09-08T14:13:00Z")
You know how some employers have overly-restrictive rules that everyone ignores, but can be grounds for dismissal? Those are to give a valid reason to fire somebody that the entire staff absolutely hates (or, in this case, isn’t funny), but can’t come up with an otherwise valid reason for dismissal. Yeah… Next up? Martin Lawrence! 😃 Now, if Comedy Central would only do this to Carlos Mencia. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/26 "2007-09-08T14:27:54Z")
Isn’t this the same Eddie Griffin who wrapped a Ferrari around a pole as a publicity stunt? My guess? Another publicity stunt. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/27 "2007-09-08T16:16:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by Honesty > It’s all about black people isn’t it? 😛 > [@](#): > > Posted by Marley23 > That quote is LouisB’s, not mine. Please show me where I made the quoted comment as I can’t find it under my name. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/28 "2007-09-08T16:18:26Z")
Posted by Marley23 > [@](#): > > And I don’t think pizzabrat was calling you racially biased. The bias was about the issue of “why can black people use the word?” Exactly and that is the reason I apologized for posting what I did. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/29 "2007-09-08T19:30:09Z")
[QUOTE=LouisB] Please show me where I made the quoted comment as I can’t find it under my name. [/QUOTE] Post 18. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/30 "2007-09-08T22:23:48Z")
[QUOTE=LouisB] If you are accusing me of being racially biased, I want you to know I deeply resent it. [/QUOTE] I wasn’t. Far from it. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Those were **pizzabrat** ’s words, not mine. Although I seriously doubt that he was accusing anyone of being racially biased. I just wanted to know to whom he was referring. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250/31 "2007-09-11T02:04:44Z")
[QUOTE=aldiboronti] …Is this really the best way to go about things? Wouldn’t it be far better to take Lenny Bruce’s advice? [/QUOTE] Hey, _I_ was a bad comedian once. I’ll take a shot at answering the OP. In my view, if anyone should have been mindful of Lenny Bruce’s admonition with respect to the word, it was Eddie Griffin. And he wasn’t. Quite the opposite. Lenny Bruce advocated the defusing of an inflammatory word, and the method he suggested was that it be used consistently, prosaically, matter-of-factly, by persons of every color, by authorities and celebrities as well as middle America and what is now humorously called the “street,” in an effort to normalize it and rob it of its power to shock or offend. Eddie Griffin, in his role as comedian/would-be iconoclast, used the word not to sap it of its shock value but to exploit it, as he has countless times in the past and undoubtedly will countless times in the future. If the word “nigger” were ever to lose its evil magic, if our visceral reaction to it disappeared, it would likewise vanish from the repertoire of the Eddie Griffins of the world, and (mostly) they would fade away shortly after. The people who run _Black Enterprise_ might have liked Lenny Bruce’s thoughtful and humane take on the word just fine, I think. The fact that they didn’t rally round Griffin’s flogging of the word as a combination punch line/identity balloon/verbal tic hardly puts them on the wrong side of the debate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedian-gets-the-hook-for-using-the-n-word/418250.md?page=1)