clouds the issue of the well.
Folk don't like to talk race and race all around, and less love all around. You know the opposition to President Clinton was more ism than isn't; the opposition to President Obama is because he is an African American (a taxonomic class truly offensive). It's race and race discussed dishonestly.
N word transmits the same semantic content as the honest N word in original historical context transmits.
I have not discriminated against any one, wouldn't if I could in any effective way. It requires too much time away from writing poems, listening to music, going to plays, reading books, and playing with kin, kith, and friends.
I'm 71, not many more years, fewer at best than I've lived, and I don't like living through this (may I say It without censure? or with it?) bullshit.
I am a free speech absolutist. But I don't run through the streets yelling Fuck, a word I've learned was considered obscene even by the Anglo Saxons. The other obscene words were invested such by the Norman conquest of England: shit, piss, pig, stool, obscene on up to lower class speech because not French or Latin.
I understand that even folk who know that most of our native obscenities are considered such simply because the Normans defeated the Angles and Saxons. Most today think piss obscene 'cause mama said so, her mama said so, and on back.
I don't use the N word in my daily speech, not often in my poems, less often in political posts. If I use the construction N word, I have said n-gg-r. If you don't believe me, ask a semanticist. N word and Ni--er communicates the same message, as F-ck, F--k, and FU transmit the F bomb.
I'm just as offended when someone writes N word as I am when some write the honest word. I was a brash youth who knocked down a so called friend who mouthed, "If I called you N word...?" I punched him down before he could finish.
I had no right. He did have the right on public property.
I was censured here, site right, because this is private property, so free speech not my right here. I have free speech at Union Square, but here only at discretion, whim, and decision of the governors here.
I accept that. I have to accept that.
I don't expect liberals, progressives, and moderates to believe in free speech absolutism. They are Americans and Americans tend to only believe gun rights are absolute.
So I surrender to your desire, but I insist that you censure 'N word' use. It offends the hell out me. It evokes the same fury from me that the original word evokes from you all, well some. It transmits the same images, history, and other atavistic attitudes.
Be clear, we meet in the flesh, and you say, "N word," my brain may create its necessary fury, but I shall seem calm and not even retaliate verbally. I will certainly avoid you and your companions.
You use the dishonest euphemism.
I confused progressive and liberal with free speech, or with the cerebral energy to comprehend my purpose. The only criticisms I accept were how effectively I may or may not have deployed my use.
You censure the honest you must censure "N word" because no rational person says that the same semantic content wasn't transmitted.
If you don't believe me, walk to a black stranger, say the euphemism, "come here you N word."
Run!