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View Full Version : Judge wants to make it Illegal to say "nigger"



-Cp
01-24-2007, 01:03 PM
It's one of the most reviled words in the English language, but if one Texas mayor gets his way, getting caught uttering the "N-word" will hit offenders where it hurts.

Mayor Ken Corley of Brazoria, Texas, has proposed a city ordinance that would make using the word in an offensive fashion a crime equal to disturbing the peace and punishable by a fine of up to $500.

"I would like to, if possible, ban all racial slurs," Corley told FOXNews.com. "We chose this word because it's the most controversial issue throughout the United States today."

Corley said the city would like to go after the use of other racial slurs, "but we want to take this one step at a time, depending on public opinion."

The 62-year-old mayor, who is a self-described "middle-class white boy," got the idea for the ordinance after watching Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton discuss banning the N-word on TV after "Seinfeld" comedian Michael Richards used it in an act last November.

"The word is not used or abused in the streets of our town; it's more, amongst the black community, as a term of endearment, OK?" Corley said. "But it is a national issue, and I would like the city of Brazoria to take a leadership role throughout the nation in banning the use of this word."

Corley polled his constituents and found "overwhelming support" for the ordinance. Brazoria, with a population of around 2,800, is an industrial city nestled about 50 miles south of Houston near the Gulf of Mexico coast. About 10 percent of the population is black.

Under the proposed Brazoria ordinance, users of the N-word would be fined only if a complaint were filed against them, thus protecting those who think they are using the word as a term of endearment.

Bishop Ricky Jones, a black minister and the head of the Living Word Fellowship Christian Center in Brazoria, "wholeheartedly" supports the ordinance and the mayor, though he doesn't agree with the "term of endearment" loophole.

"It's trying to be made a term of endearment in the black community, the way it has been used so loosely, but I for one, when I look at that word and look at the history of it, it has been used to demonize, demoralize and degrade black people as a whole."

Jabari Asim, a deputy editor at the Washington Post and author of the forthcoming book "The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't and Why," has traced the American arrival of the word to 1619 when a Jamestown, Va., diarist, John Rolfe, noted: "We got 20 niggers today on a Dutch man-of-war."

"That's the first recorded instance of African captives arriving to British North America and that was the word used to describe them," Asim said.

Over the last 25 years, the hip-hop community has sprinkled the word throughout its anthems.

"It's really important for people to realize that the history of the word goes so far back that recent developments in the past 20 years [of] casual use," Asim said. "There is no god higher than history and I don't think recent developments are strong enough to overcome the centuries of hatred that are attached to the word."

Brazoria's proposed ordinance is the first time an American city has tried to ban the word, though groups such as Abolish the "N" Word have lobbied for its permanent retirement, Asim said.

"Calling for societal change is one thing, but calling for legislation against speech is quite another," he said. "That's practically anti-American to say that we're going to allow the government and Uncle Sam determine how we speak to one another. It's counterintuitive to me. It's best to lead by example than by legislation."

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a senior legal analyst for FOX News, agrees.

"This is government trying to take the easy way out," he said. "When people use words that are harmful, they lack civility and they lack education, but they don't lack the right to say it."

Napolitano doubts the ordinance will stand up in a court of law.

"You can't just pick a word because then you're granting more protection to the victims of that word than you are to victims of other words, so you really open up a Pandora's box," Napolitano said.

The ordinance is on shaky ground legally because of a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision, R.A.V. vs. the City of St. Paul, said David Hudson, a First Amendment scholar at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn.

"Fighting words are not protected by the First Amendment, and a lot of fighting words are face to face personal insults," Hudson said. "But in 1992, in this case, the court held that selective banning of fighting words, in other words, singly out, for instance, fighting words based on race and sex, that that constituted viewpoint discrimination and violated the First Amendment.

"It's a well-intentioned effort, but it's a well-intentioned unconstitutional effort," Hudson said.

Corley said that while he has "some concerns" about the law's legal standing, the city attorney is confident it will pass muster.

A public hearing will be held Thursday, before the five-member city council decides on whether to pursue the measure. Last year, it was the first city in Texas to pass a sex-offender ordinance.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246279,00.html

5stringJeff
01-24-2007, 01:05 PM
Free speech, anyone?

dirt mcgirt
01-24-2007, 01:14 PM
Free speech, anyone?
I don't think it should be criminal or an infraction, but it's an interesting case nonetheless. The SCOTUS has already ruled that your free speech has limitations. I imagine yelling fire in a crowded movie theater is probably the same as yelling nigger in a packed chicken and waffles restaurant. Maybe saying nigger might elicit the same response from the town residents. I could see where this proposal could get passed. Ironically, the conservatives could actually be aligned with the ACLU in opposing this ordinance too.

Mr. P
01-24-2007, 01:33 PM
Mayor Ken Corley of Brazoria, Texas, has proposed a city ordinance that would make using the word in an offensive fashion a crime equal to disturbing the peace and punishable by a fine of up to $500.

Not a Judge, a Mayor that can be voted out of office.

dirt mcgirt
01-24-2007, 01:35 PM
Not a Judge, a Mayor that can be voted out of office.

But why would he be voted out of office? For that to happen there would have to be a lot of outrage.


Corley polled his constituents and found "overwhelming support" for the ordinance. Brazoria, with a population of around 2,800, is an industrial city nestled about 50 miles south of Houston near the Gulf of Mexico coast. About 10 percent of the population is black.

Mr. P
01-24-2007, 01:36 PM
I don't think it should be criminal or an infraction, but it's an interesting case nonetheless. The SCOTUS has already ruled that your free speech has limitations. I imagine yelling fire in a crowded movie theater is probably the same as yelling nigger in a packed chicken and waffles restaurant. Maybe saying nigger might elicit the same response from the town residents. I could see where this proposal could get passed. Ironically, the conservatives could actually be aligned with the ACLU in opposing this ordinance too.

Not the same at all. Yelling fire induces panic in public, yelling Nigger will get yer ass killed in some places. :)

jillian
01-24-2007, 02:43 PM
I don't think it should be criminal or an infraction, but it's an interesting case nonetheless. The SCOTUS has already ruled that your free speech has limitations. I imagine yelling fire in a crowded movie theater is probably the same as yelling nigger in a packed chicken and waffles restaurant. Maybe saying nigger might elicit the same response from the town residents. I could see where this proposal could get passed. Ironically, the conservatives could actually be aligned with the ACLU in opposing this ordinance too.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Brings to mind ond of the funniest Saturday Night Live skits ever... Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase doing the word association thing.

Chase: Coon...
Pryor: Honkey

Chase: Nigger
Pryor: Dead Honkey


Heh!

Mr. P
01-24-2007, 02:54 PM
Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Brings to mind ond of the funniest Saturday Night Live skits ever... Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase doing the word association thing.

Chase: Coon...
Pryor: Honkey

Chase: Nigger
Pryor: Dead Honkey


Heh!

One of the best!!:laugh:

Insein
01-24-2007, 02:59 PM
More free speech violations. IT won't end till the government gets it so that all that can be said is what they deem passable. All other speech will either be finable or jailable.

jillian
01-24-2007, 03:01 PM
One of the best!!:laugh:


It is. And under this silly proposal, that brilliant bit of satire would never have happened.

I don't believe in censorship. People have the right to sound as ignorant as they wish. (Not to mention the risk of getting one's arse kicked if the wrong thing is said to the wrong people).

Hugh Lincoln
01-24-2007, 03:24 PM
Never mind the word. Let's make them illegal.

The ClayTaurus
01-24-2007, 03:34 PM
Never mind the word. Let's make them illegal.How about you too, while we're at it?

5stringJeff
01-24-2007, 03:58 PM
Never mind the word. Let's make them illegal.

:rolleyes:

Gunny
01-24-2007, 09:31 PM
Never mind the word. Let's make them illegal.

What's with the continual drive-by racism? How about if we make ignorant f*cks who think skin color makes one person superior to another illegal?

manu1959
01-24-2007, 10:07 PM
What's with the continual drive-by racism? How about if we make ignorant f*cks who think skin color makes one person superior to another illegal?

nah....i have this new game show idea....

...... today hugh lincoln, wearing his i hate n%&ers t shirt, is going to try and make it from 54th and crenshaw to beverly hills ..... now lets meet our next contestant on "white rabbit"......

Gunny
01-24-2007, 10:10 PM
nah....i have this new game show idea....

...... today hugh lincoln, wearing his i hate n%&ers t shirt, is going to try and make it from 54th and crenshaw to beverly hills ..... now lets meet or next contestant on "white rabbit"......

Isn't 54th and Crensahw in Watts?

manu1959
01-24-2007, 10:13 PM
Isn't 54th and Crensahw in Watts?

yep

Pale Rider
01-24-2007, 10:32 PM
It'll hit black comedians the hardest. They're the ones that use the word the most.

Gunny
01-24-2007, 10:35 PM
yep

LOL ... what I thought. Been a long time since I've been in LA though.

I'm sure he'd make LOTS of new friends.:)

jillian
01-24-2007, 10:48 PM
LOL ... what I thought. Been a long time since I've been in LA though.

I'm sure he'd make LOTS of new friends.:)

I wonder if the resulting film would be accepted on America's Funniest Home Videos. I know *I'd* laugh my butt off! :D

Insein
01-24-2007, 11:22 PM
nah....i have this new game show idea....

...... today hugh lincoln, wearing his i hate n%&ers t shirt, is going to try and make it from 54th and crenshaw to beverly hills ..... now lets meet our next contestant on "white rabbit"......

Wow. I can actually see that being done at the rate Reality TV is going. It'd be the closest we've gotten to "The Running Man" yet.

manu1959
01-24-2007, 11:25 PM
Wow. I can actually see that being done at the rate Reality TV is going. It'd be the closest we've gotten to "The Running Man" yet.

my brother is an agent, i sent it to him and he pitched it.....we shall see....

Pale Rider
01-25-2007, 12:01 AM
my brother is an agent, i sent it to him and he pitched it.....we shall see....

If ya make it.... what'll the prize be? Fryaaaaaad chicken for life? :laugh: