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News and Editorials Editorial Letter to the SJ Mercury News on the Use of the "N-word" I respect Tommy Fulcher and think that his experiences well illustrate the hate speech minefield. His conclusion is not mutually exclusive with Huey's/Sylvestri's suggestions. To prevent the always painful and too often fatal experiences he described, we need to re-learn the lesson that words do hurt! The use of a slur by its targets is a classic defensive technique. Unfortunately, the use of the word by any group inflames the other, when kids or adults inevitably confuse these uses. The danger of confrontation is real enough to suggest that teaching kids NOT to use slurs in any direction is paramount. I'm not clear that Huey/Sylvestri are actually calling for the outlawing of specific words, as Fulcher implies. That wouldn't fly by the Supreme Court. Their suggestion that slurs should be stated as grounds for qualifying a crime as a "hate crime" has real merit in the real world. (It could have prevented a very embarrassing local instance of judicial error.) Why limit it to the "n-word" alone among all slurs? A cautionary note: Our agency teaches thousands of Silicon Valley kids every year about the dangerous power of slurs; we need the ability to use the word for instruction. It’s also possible for a teacher to deal with Twain's historical classics using the word with a great disclaimer. No, we can't outlaw words, but we certainly can deal with outlaws who use them to harm people because of their ethnicity, color, or creed. Bart A. Charlow, President |
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