Behind the scenes
Last week, Phillip Morris, a black columnist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer tried to use the word "nigger" in a quote as part of an essay about tolerance. The paper's ombudsman reports what happened next.
The debate was passionate, and opinions varied.Morris wanted to keep the word in his column. "I don't think we should do so much self-censorship," he said. "I'm not saying that I find gratuitous use acceptable, but if I'm going to use that line as the crux of the point I'm trying to make, I've got to use the word."
Metro Editor Chris Quinn, who edits Morris' column, also wanted to leave the word in: "They're in the bar, the word is used, it shocks them, so Phillip wanted to use the word to achieve the same effect," he said. "By taking the word out, you lose the shock value." Deputy Managing Editor Elizabeth McIntyre and several other Metro assistant editors, both black and white, agreed.
However, Daryl Kannberg, the deputy managing editor whose duties include overseeing the copy editors, disagreed. "I got the point, without having to see the word," he said. "I didn't think it was worth offending the readers I knew we would offend by using it."
Profanity and racial epithets do not get published without approval from the top, which at The Plain Dealer means Editor Susan Goldberg and Managing Editor Debra Adams Simmons. Neither liked the idea of using the word.
"For many readers, it's never OK to use that word, given its history," said Simmons. "Particularly for people who are older, it takes them back to a place they don't want to think about."
Simmons said that she doesn't believe in a blanket prohibition but that the bar for using it should be high.
To the PD's credit, it has used the word at least 255 times in situations that other papers would not have, thus making it a more reliable source of information about race relations thant, say, The New York Times.
Morris himself has used the word several times. In one short 2005 column, used it 12 times. Here's his takeaway from that column:
Such is the continuing power of the N-word — a word so common, yet so heavily freighted with historical baggage, that America frequently abbreviates and hyphenates it, as if a hyphen would somehow ease the sting of a word that should be as dead as Latin. How uniquely American. How stupid.
Comments
Maybe it's mention in the ombudsman's report (I didn't read the whole thing) but what if Phillip Morris was not a "b---k columnist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer"? Would that same paper have kept the word if he were white? Also, would it matter if he was not named after a cigarette brand?
Posted by: JohnnyB | January 22, 2008 12:18 PM
I think the editor should've let him use the word so that people would phone the newsroom in anger, and he could sing out, with an "I told you so" attitude, "CALL FOR PHIL-LIP MORRRRISSSS!"
Posted by: Vance | January 22, 2008 12:34 PM
Boy im sick of uppity n-words complaining.
Posted by: Anonymous | January 22, 2008 3:08 PM
Even now, I can hear the NYT sniggering over the PD's niggardly use of the N-word.
Posted by: Michael | January 22, 2008 8:53 PM
N---a pl---e!
Posted by: mypalmike | January 22, 2008 11:01 PM
Interesting that you felt the need to specify (in the first sentence no less) that the gentlemen happens to be black.
What difference does that make? Are you suggesting that the editor should have a different rule book when working with his African American staff? Are you among those that feel "nigger" (or "nigga" for that matter) is word black writers may use, but not whites?
Posted by: Jess Wonderin | January 23, 2008 6:18 PM
Well, as a white writer who used the word nigger in this very post (and just did it again) that clearly wasn't my point. I think you can see what it might be relevant without being absolutely essential.
Posted by: radosh | January 23, 2008 6:45 PM
As someone old enough to have seen with my own eyes "Coloreds Only" and "Whites Only" signs at drinking fountains and restrooms, I am thankful for the social revolution that has taken place in this country in my lifetime.
Language is culture, laws are words, thoughts are acts. If we have to go through another generation or three of awkward public examination of the language of race repression so we might as a society become and remain conscious of its pernicious power, then so be it.
Posted by: J.D. | January 24, 2008 10:45 AM
As someone old enough to have seen with my own eyes "Coloreds Only" and "Whites Only" signs at drinking fountains and restrooms, I am thankful for the social revolution that has taken place in this country in my lifetime.
Language is culture, laws are words, thoughts are acts. If we have to go through another generation or three of awkward public examination of the language of race repression so we might as a society become and remain conscious of its pernicious power, then so be it.
Posted by: J.D. | January 24, 2008 10:45 AM
J.D.'s two posts are separate, but equal
Posted by: JohnnyB | January 24, 2008 12:08 PM
LOLZ, JohnnyB Good!
Posted by: J.D. | January 24, 2008 12:55 PM
Good post topic. I didn't even grow up in this country (I'm anglo/aussie) and the N-word still makes me feel all squinchy inside. I will not stop y'all from saying it if you feel like you need to but I will censor myself. We all know what word we're talking about and in my opinion it does not need to be said.
I do listen to a lot of rap & hip-hop music where it is censored on the radio but left in on the CD. Still do not know what to think about the people of a group using their own epithet; I prefer the word not be said in any context but I do not feel we can censure people who are using it about themselves, it isn't the same type of hate in that sense... Opinions?
Posted by: SouthernBelle | January 25, 2008 3:32 PM