What do you all think of Kramer now?

[lizbud]

Liz that is a mouthful and I couldn't agree more. In fact I am sure we could fill volumes with stories of how people have been insulted and just have had to take it and move on. When did society decide that insults need to wind up in a courtroom? Personally I blame the attorneys (sorry Johanna ) who take on every case that comes down the pike. Also people need to grow up and just deal with things.

Isn't it nice to see some common sense every once in awhile

I did have to snicker a bit at this part of the story.......


"The imams, likewise, are demanding an apology from US Airways, and staged a protest Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The Muslims claim they were merely praying in advance of their flight, though we can bet they weren't praying as much as their fellow travelers were."

[lizbud]

Some posters in this thread wondered why blacks can & do use the
dreaded N word but object to it's use by whites. I saw this article by a
black columnist on this very subject. It's interesting to see his opinion.
You just might be surprised.


Richards' rant might merit a thank-you
--------------------

Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington:
McClatchy/Tribune Newspapers

December 5, 2006

The N-word has had few friends better than comedian Paul Mooney.

Put aside that the word was long a staple of his act. Put aside the
promotional pamphlet he once sent out that screamed the word in big, fat
type. Consider instead what he told anyone who argued that blacks should
stop using the word. He replied that he said it a hundred times every
morning: "It keeps my teeth white."

The selfsame Paul Mooney joined Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine
Waters (D-Calif.) in a recent news conference asking black folks to stop
using the N-Word. In other news, there are unconfirmed reports of pigs
flying above Times Square.

Mooney says he was "cured" of his N-word addiction by Michael Richards'
infamous meltdown last month at the Laugh Factory. I tend to think he's
not the only one. From strangers online to my neighbor down the street,
everywhere I turn lately, I find black folks debating the stubborn
insistence some of us have on using this word.

Which leaves me as much vexed as pleased. More power to them for
belatedly getting religion. Still, are you telling me that nearly 20 years
after hip-hop made that word unavoidable, it takes some white TV actor
losing his mind to make black folks see what should have been obvious all
along?

I mean, what do we learn from Richards' rant that we should not have
already known from Snoop Dogg or Ice Cube? That the word is ugly? That is
it hateful? That it demeans, denigrates, diminishes and denies? So
where was black outrage when black rappers began putting that word into the
minds and mouths of black children? When we--African-Americans--began
hating ourselves to a beat?

And if I hear one more Negro offer one more pseudo-intellectual
justification for that self-loathing, I will not be responsible for my actions
afterward. Don't give me the it-means-something-different-because-we-
spell-it-with-an-"a"-on-the-end speech.And for mercy sake, don't subject
me to the addled argument proffered by John Ridley in December's
Esquire. He says that, as whites feel no particular solidarity with their
impoverished racial brethren in Appalachia, it is time for "ascended
blacks" to bid farewell to, as he puts it, "niggers."

Don't tell me any of that because it quails in the face of historical
fact. We are talking about the word that was used as Gus Clarke's back
was split open with a whip and salt was rubbed into the wounds. The word
that was used when Mary Turner's baby was cut from her womb with a
knife and stomped to death in its birth cries. The word that was used when
James Byrd was tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged until his
body was torn to pieces.

To the people who did these things, it did not matter how it was
spelled. They knew precisely what race they were referring to. And they saw
no difference between "ascended blacks" and any other kind.

Nor should that last surprise us. In the calculus of race, I am not my
brother's keeper. I am my brother. Individuality is the first casualty
of bigotry.

Black people, like other Americans, tend to flee from the burdens and
demands of history. History, ours especially, hurts too much.

But what Michael Richards taught and what blacks may belatedly be
learning is that history doesn't care. Not about your feelings, not about
your rationalizations, not about your subtleties of spelling.

Because they don't realize that some blacks, Paul Mooney prominent
among them, seem surprised to learn that this word still hates us. That it
always has and always will.

And if Richards is the catalyst that finally forces them to understand
this, there's only one thing I can say to him:

Thank you.

[RICHARD]

Maxine Waters is nothing but a racist biatch herself.

And Mooney is a moron. Like it took a "white person" to cure him of the N word?

Please!

I agree to the self loathing aspect of the article.


The slavery issue should be put to bed....

If not...

The Irish should be outraged, Mexicans should be outraged. Japanese should be outraged, Arabs should be outraged.

These are people who have, and still as recently as yesterday, have had the
evil racist tide to swim against.

I am not saying blacks do not have the right to be offended.
But hey, carrying a grudge for 150 years ain't easy-and the "leaders" just keep propagating the hate-for the 'white' man

Every race in the U.S. has some kinda beef with the man....best solution?
shrug it off and FIDO!

But first let GLoria Allred make a buck on someone else pain.