[Alfredo is an old friend of mine in the USA. He had these fascinating comments to make on the “outrage” over the word, N*gger. In Africa, the similar nasty word is K*ffir. Apparently in Namibia you can go to jail for using it – or so I heard – don’t know how true that is.

But at my work, another white guy there used to have a lot of fun with the N*gger word. Over here, that word is pretty meaningless. So he’d walk in and say to one of the blacks, “Howzit my N*gger” And the blacks in turn would greet him in the same way saying to him (a white guy), “Howzit my N*gger”. Nobody took offense. It made everyone smile – and we got along with our work. Jan]

What bothers me about this episode is the sheer hypocrisy — the hypocrisy
of those demanding the apology, as well as the hypocrisy of the
apology/explanation. We have a bunch of people who pretend they’ve never
used the word “nigger”, and another bunch of people who have been *trained* to be more offended by this word than by actual obscenity or blasphemy.

It’s simple: if someone gets on your nerves, you use language targeted to
the person annoying you. If the person is female, it’s something along the
lines of “bitch”, or even cruder female-related terms. If it’s a guy, then
it’s “asshole” or “prick” or… you get the idea. If it’s a homosexual (or
if you want to really insult someone who’s not a sexual deviant), it’s “fag” or some equivalent term. If it’s a Hispanic, then it’s “spic”, etc. If it’s a Frenchman… well, simply being French is its own disgrace…

Of course, the news report just HAD to bring up Mel Gibson’s so-called
“anti-Semitic” remarks. I have to say so-called, because this term is wildly inaccurate as it is generally used. In modern times, most Jews are not Semitic, and most Semites are not Jews.

I have a huge problem with these “words of limited usage”. That is, only
blacks can use the word “nigger”, only homosexuals can call another one
“queer”, etc. If the word is that bad, then no one should use it at all.
This is all about political bullying by minorities (actually, by the elites who manipulate these minorities) against others. What makes it really intolerable, though, is that it’s considered perfectly okay to make
similarly offensive remarks about Catholics or other Christians or simply
normal white males.

Also, the hecklers were right — Richards’ only success was in Seinfeld.
He’s just not very funny on his own (and neither is Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who was the least likeable regular on Seinfeld). Now Jason Alexander (Seinfeld’s George Costanza) has had a couple of short-lived but funny series since Seinfeld, and I think it’d be a real hoot to have him as captain of the Enterprise on a future Star Trek series. But Richards had every right to respond in language intended to make an impact on those with whom he was angry. This is not “hate speech”, and the real racists are the protesters and those who make a living out of demanding apologies every times someone says something that provokes one of these “manufactured offenses” against selected “victim” groups.
Alfredo