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On @Piersmorgan, The N-Word, And Related works

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On October 10th, 2014,

the @washingtonpost produced this extraordinary project about the "N-Word." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/features/the-n-word

This prompted an op-ed piece by the often incendiary @piersmorgan,

which, as he's known for, generated a typical firestorm on social media:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2829080/PIERS-MORGAN-black-Americans-want-N-word-die-kill-themselves.html

I felt this latest public vetting of this very old controversy is a good time to call attention to a documentary by Todd Larkin Williams that got of notice in 2004, but not a lot since. Sadly, it's not complete on Youtube, but what is here, is pretty interesting and surfaces just a few of the many ways this issue is and has been discussed by people of all colors and from all walks of life.  Here;s some back story on it.
 

The N-Word Documentary

List of interviews

Part 1  – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN1JengGaZg
Part 2 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLTazJIkrGc
Part 3 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLaII-v-jMo
Part 4- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rq5jQ_4iTw
Part 5-  Missing
Part 6 – Missing
Part 7 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ8e9RI5DH0

Tim Wise on the use of the word "nigger/nigga." 

"No, white people should never use it. History has been a double standard, so get over it."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmLXZ6_PW9A

Wynton Marsalis, the renowned black musician disagrees with Wise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ5dOOoBydM

My opinion on this issue is irrelevant, and has nothing to do with why I produced this post.

I feel it's the media's job, as well as our educational system's role to help discuss these kinds of issues in thoughtful and informative ways without always maligning or impugning people merely for having an opinion about a controversial topic.  These issues must transcend race because we are a multi-racial planet. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone should be able to voice theirs. Yeah, even Piers Morgan.

Related

Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy

It’s “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets,” a word that whites have employed to wound and degrade African Americans for three centuries. Paradoxically, among many black people it has become a term of affection and even empowerment. The word, of course, is nigger, and in this candid, lucidly argued book the distinguished legal scholar Randall Kennedy traces its origins, maps its multifarious connotations, and explores the controversies that rage around it.

 

Can You Spare A Few Hours to Help Defeat Republicans in 2014?

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The Supreme Court has just flipped America the finger. Their Voting Rights Act ruling was a last straw rubbing up against my last nerve.  I have just had it with them, and with the entire radical conservative agenda. Something has to start changing, and I'd like to do anything I can think of to nudge that change along. I think recent events show that it's way past time for running down the hall with our hair on fire. We all need to do something, and soon, because things really are that bad. And they're getting worse.

I have a very simple idea that could prove useful in getting people off their butts and into voting booths where they can help vote these venal obstructists out of Congress in the 2014 midterm elections.

The project needs a research volunteer to help compile a few key voting facts and statistics. These will help tell a story on the project's website and motivate people to participate. It shouldn't be more than a few hours of work for anyone with modest research skills.

If you'd like to help me out with this, please email me using my Contact form.

If I don't know you, please give me a little background on you and your skills. As happened when I assembed the team behind StopRush.net, these kinds of crowd projects can swell pretty fast. And if it doesn't need you now, it probably will later if the idea catches, so having your name around will save time down when and if it needs more human resource.

Thank you.

 

@Darrellissa Needs To Apologize To The American People

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We now know that Issa asked for very results the Inspector General gave him. The IG was asked to look for "Teaparty" targeting, but no one tells us until now that IRS had been looking for "Progressive" and "Occupy" groups all along, too. Issa just didn't ask for those. This entire "scandal" was a god damn hoax. We were played. Perfectly and completely. 

Considered alongside today's Voting Rights atrocity in the Supreme Court, I can't even quite articulate the level of disgust I feel for my country right now. We should bill that fucking car thief even if he does apologize.

Salon:  Darrell Issa’s credibility is over

Now it’s clear Issa played us this whole time, thanks to new documents that show the IRS also targeted “progressive” and “Occupy” groups, in addition to Tea Party ones. And if it targeted groups on both sides, it wasn’t really singling anyone out (the only group actually denied tax-exempt status was a progressive one, after all) and the whole scandal falls apart.

HuffingtonPost/Sam Stein: IRS Targeted Progressive Groups, Too, Documents Reveal

The Morning Plum: Darrell Issa backtracks on IRS scandal

The news that progressive groups were also targeted by the IRS should, in theory at least, prompt reporters to press leading Republicans on a simple question: Do you still stand by your insinuations that the White House or Obama campaign were somehow behind the politically motivated targeting of conservatives?