Читать книгу The Communication Playbook - Teri Kwal Gamble - Страница 211

The use of insults, vulgar expressions, and speech that degrades and encourages hostility in others is on the rise. How are those against whom these words are used responding? In some cases, pejorative words that are used to stigmatize or demonstrate contempt for the members of a group are reclaimed by the group and redefined by group members as positive in nature.

For example, gays and lesbians adopted the terms queer (denoting a refusal of traditional sexual identity categories) and genderqueer (to reject conventional gender distinctions) as labels for new ways of experiencing sexuality and gender and to make positive statements about who they are.⁶⁶ Some women proudly refer to themselves as girls. While the “n-word” was coined by slave traders over 400 years ago to degrade Blacks, some African Americans, in an effort to invalidate the meaning that bigots attached to it, use the epithet among themselves.⁶⁷

On the other hand, websites like abolishthenword.com and college and public forums have explored the n-word’s usage, with some critics attempting to encourage the elimination of casual use of the word. Lawmakers have even sponsored resolutions to ban the word’s use totally. Contrastingly, the website niggaspace.com draws a distinction between differently spelled versions of the n-word. According to the site’s founder, “nigga” embodies brotherhood and fraternity, not ignorance and hate.⁶⁸

In your opinion, can we solve the problem of racism by banning or respelling a word? For example, when advertisers criticized radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger for using this racial epithet on the air, she resigned because she did not want to have to prune her words, noting that African Americans use the word themselves.⁶⁹ Words, as we see, however, can take on different meanings depending on who uses them. A book publisher decided to issue a new version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn replacing every use of the n-word in the novel with the word “slave.” In your opinion, does taking the n-word out change the novel substantially? Do you think keeping the n-word in Twain’s book promotes racism, or does it reflect the period of history accurately?⁷⁰