UPTOWNflavor

In case you haven’t been following the local news, the City Council has voted to ban the use of the N-word. Although it is a symbolic gesture, what if the ban could really be enforced? You could ride the subway with a group of teenage boys without having to hear the word or turn on the radio and TV without a barrage of derogatory terms being spewed at you. Actually enforcing the ban might be a step in the right direction towards curbing the trend towards verbal assaults being tossed around like they are actual acceptable forms of communicating. Of course, a truly enforceable ban would step into the realm of freedom of speech but in some cases that freedom has been abused. When does one person’s freedom violate another’s and who’s to decide whose freedom is more important? It is one thing to boldly claim that you don’t use the word but what about speaking up when you hear others using it? Are you somehow validating the use of the word by allowing someone else their freedom of expression?

The continuing debate about the use of the N-word has sparked discussions around the country. The L.A. Times published an article about how easily the word is filtered into our daily life. Below is an excerpt from the article.

NEW YORK — Inside Harlem’s Uptown Jeans clothing store, a 50 Cent rap song recited the n-word over the loudspeakers: “N—- you front you gone get it, OK now maybe I said it.”

“We’re still gonna keep saying it,” said Kevin Johnson, a 17-year-old from Queens who was browsing T-shirts in the Harlem store. “There’s a million kids that use it. They’re not going to stop just because one person says so.”

“What difference does it make if they ban the n-word?” said Yaya, 29, who did not give a last name because of its historical connections to slavery. He sells books on 125th Street about black oppression and lynchings. “Ban police brutality. Ban racial profiling. Ban that. Forget the n-word.”

Tieka Smiley, 27, a saleswoman at Uptown Jeans, said she liked hip-hop music with references to the n-word and didn’t mind young people who used it.

“Everybody has freedom of speech,” she said. “It depends on the way you use it.”

Smiley said people of all races used it as a form of endearment and even respect. She said people had transformed its meaning into something positive.

“It is different saying it now than from saying the word back in the day,” she said. “That was when there was segregation and slavery. But now the younger kids say it just to say that’s my homeboy.”

Johnson, who is Salvadoran, said he used it among friends of different races.

“If you say it to older people, they’re gonna find it disrespectful,” he said. “For us kids, we’re used to it.”

Read the whole article here.