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The ‘N-word’ is out, and so must be Nadeau and Murray

    There may indeed be a double standard, as today’s lead letter writer points out, regarding the “N-word.” But what is generally not a racial slur when used casually by African-Americans is clearly one of the most hateful and degrading ones when used by Caucasians — and most Americans know it. And while it may not be a crime to use the word, it is definitely a capital offense for a politician.
    That is, there may be nothing in state law — short of an executive order by the governor — that can force Cobleskill Mayor Mark Nadeau and town Supervisor Thomas Murray to resign over their apparent use of the word in a private conversation with Highway Superintendent Thomas Fissell that he tape-recorded. But it would certainly be the proper thing to do to spare themselves and the town and village additional humiliation, and to assure the people of Cobleskill — especially blacks and other minorities — that racism of any type won’t be tolerated.
    There is almost no proper context for a public official to use the word that both Nadeau and Murray are quoted as having used, and certainly not in the way they have been quoted as having used it — which was joking and derogatory. ...................>>>>......................>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00702&AppName=1

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Why is it all right for blacks, but not whites, to use the ‘N-word’?

    Re July 8 article, “Town probes allegations of racism”: It is unfortunate that allegations of racial slurs about two Cobleskill town officials have become public. The fact that they were taped by a third person involved in a private conservation is also disturbing. Any use of the “N-word” by a public official made in public would be political suicide, and even in private I find it unsettling.
    My problem is the glaring double standard that Victorio Reyes [director of the Albany Social Justice Center] exposes when she says in her prepared statement, “The word . . . reminds me that black Americans came to this country in chains and were considered subhuman.” And then, “We are led to believed that racism no longer exists, when in fact it is still ever-present behind closed doors.”
    Now I don’t know exactly what “we” she is referring to or who she is saying is leading us to that belief. But I do know that in my urban Schenectady neighborhood, I hear the “N-word” about an average of five times a day. I hear it from children as young as 6 or 7 years old, from teenagers walking down the street talking to each other or to a “friend” on their cellphone. Sometimes it’s like a greeting, as in “Yo, ‘N-word,’ waz up?” But then I’ll hear someone say, “I’ll put a cap in that ‘N-word’” or, “That ‘N-word’ better stop messin’ with me.” Or when a car goes by with its music set at [peak] volume.
    My point is that every time I hear the “N-word” spoken publicly, it is coming from the mouth of a black American. I would like Ms. Reyes and the Albany Social Justice Center to explain to me why what three people are claimed to have said in a private conversation is front-page news if you are white, but if you are black, it’s OK to use it anytime and all the time.
    I’m not a racist. I don’t judge people by their skin color. I do judge people by their character and the respect they exhibit. If I showed the same disrespect by using derogatory slurs when I was talking with my white friends, I wouldn’t expect much respect in return.
If you don’t want white people to use the “N-word,” is it too much to ask that black people stop, too?

D.E. HINE
Schenectady

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00703&AppName=1

I have to agree with Hine. You go down town and all you hear is the word niger (they don't say 'n-word') FROM the black community.It is said affectionately and it is said in anger. wth?

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Blacks use the N-word as a way to rewrite its, and their own, history

    Re D.E. Hine’s July 14 letter: I have a few thoughts that may help Mr. Hine and the rest of us better understand the use of the N-word by the African-American community.
    Let me begin by saying there is no everyday circumstance in which the use of the N-word by a white person is acceptable. This may be troubling to those who believe it creates a double standard. But the fact is that it’s racist to do so. There’s too much history attached to the word for white people to use it.
    Second, white people need to stop getting up in arms about that so-called double standard. I’m white and I have no desire to throw out racial slurs in casual conversation and neither should any other white person. I can understand the confusion as to what right was given to African-Americans that allows them to use the N-word. (Shouldn’t they not want to say it? Isn’t it a terribly offensive thing to say?) It’s not so much of a right as a need. And it’s called the need to reclaim one’s history.
    Why do this? Well, African-Americans had no control over their own lives for centuries and the reclaiming of history serves to bring back control of a history to the people it belongs to. Think of it as being able to tell your story the way you’d want to, not in the words of someone else. By using the N-word, the negative connotations are being stripped away. What was once a racial epithet is now part of a friendly greeting. Further, the N-word is reduced merely to a word and nothing more.
    There is a long tradition of oppressed ethnic groups attempting to rewrite their own histories by reclaiming parts of it that were once offensive. Take, for example, the reclaiming of the word “f*g**t” by the GLBTQ [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning] community. Although this word continues to be used by degraders as a term of offense, it has taken on a whole new meaning within gay culture and, to restate an earlier point, gives people control over a word that was previously used to oppress them.
    Going further back, there is a lot of historically driven fiction written by Caribbean writers in an attempt to reclaim their histories that were wiped away by European colonizers in the 15th and 16th centuries.
    Reclaiming one’s history is not a new practice and is one that should be recognized in the present day. Certainly, there will be people within every ethnic community who are still uncomfortable using words that still can be used to verbally abuse them, and this is understandable.
    However, although some may not like it, the N-word is an important part of African-American history, and its repeated use today by African-Americans only serves to benefit those who identify themselves with that history.

    JUSTIN FRIELLO
    Schenectady

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00503&AppName=1

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It matters that N-word was uttered in private

    A July 14 letter from D.E. Hine claims that there is a double standard in using the “N-word.” Blacks are allowed to, whites are not. This fact is obvious and undeniable. On the same page, the Gazette editorial staff said that even though there is a double standard, Cobleskill Mayor Mark Nadeau and town Supervisor Thomas Murray should resign for saying the “N-word” — in a private conversation.
    That point (private conversation), to me, is key. Apparently, their conversation was recorded, unbeknownst to them. In a court of law, this recording would be inadmissible.
    If I knew these men personally, maybe I wouldn’t like them. Perhaps I don’t like their terminology or their topic of conversation. But in the end, it was a private conversation.
    It is a frightening world when the tentacles of political correctness — or is it the thought police? — can reach into a person’s personal life and destroy a career because of something said in private.

    PETER FRANK
    Schenectady

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00506&AppName=1

This Justin Friello character is really a whacko democrap if I have ever seen one.

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Personal racism a reflection of organizational racism

    As a 30-year Schenectady resident and homeowner who still returns every summer, I now live and work as a sociologist at Tulane University in New Orleans. Remembering Jena, La., where nooses were hung in 2006 from a schoolyard tree as a threat to African-American students there, I need not hark back to the 1960s to see racism. Sociologists have long known certain things about racism, even in the North:
    Sociology 101-A: Public offi cials’ expressions of racism are not equivalent to those of ordinary citizens. In particular, let’s not compare the racism of those with political and organizational power to racism’s victims’ expressions of selfhatred — often creatively subverted by them into interpersonal power, but still not a match to the power of those in elected or appointed offi ce.
    Sociology 101-B: Official power can become de-facto public policy. Cobleskill’s mayor and town supervisor can translate their “personal attitudes” into organizational exclusions and a climate of widespread permission for racist attitudes and behaviors, thus rendering racism unspoken public policy.
    Sociology 101-C: Allowing racism has racist outcomes. Expressing their racism in the work environment, especially when it was about a national holiday presumably observed by Cobleskill (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), suggests the need to look into other possible forms of policy and organizational racism in Cobleskill — in hiring, promotion and firing? In education? In workers’ ability to report the racism [of] those in public offi ce?
    Sociologoy 101-D: Secrecy breeds and protects racism. Good for Cobleskill residents for staging a pubic protest against their public offi cials’ racism.
    Sociology 101-E: Blessed are the whistleblowers. Cobleskill’s Hailey Upton, 16, deserves thanks for speaking out about her experiences hearing racism by teachers and students at her Cobleskill summer school. Bravo to Highway Superintendent Thomas Fissell for recording racist utterances in a workplace conversation by public officials. Good for Cobleskill residents who circulated a petition to remove the mayor and town supervisor from offi ce. Those who speak out against institutional racism help to undermine it.
    Sociology 101-F: Racism is so ingrained in American institutions that it often persists when it seems to have gone away. It will continue until the actions of even a small-town mayor and town supervisor are recognized as reflecting and fostering organizational racism.

MARTHA K. HUGGINS
Schenectady
The writer is a former professor of sociology at Union College.

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r03002&AppName=1