I tend to agree with Richard Pryor on this one. He tried to destabilize and thus remove the power from the term 'nigger' in his routines. In time, however, he came to the conclusion, and publicly stated, that he would no longer use the term at all, because some people would hear his jokes either out of context or without sufficient reference to understand. In short, he was perpetuating the core of the term even while poking fun of it, which did nothing ultimately to undermine it.
If you stop calling people names, you don't have to explain what the name used to mean. This is why the only manner in which I support the use of slurs is in academic treatises (a category under which our present discussion would fall), because then the context (or at the very least a historical framework) would be provided.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 07:44 pm (UTC)If you stop calling people names, you don't have to explain what the name used to mean. This is why the only manner in which I support the use of slurs is in academic treatises (a category under which our present discussion would fall), because then the context (or at the very least a historical framework) would be provided.