THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 26, 1995 TAG: 9509260003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
Regarding ``The N-Word'' (Commentary, Sept. 10): As a 38-year old proud and dignified black man who lived through the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s and other's fight to gain us black Americans our full rights and freedoms, I say that maybe the solution to our problems with racism may very well begin with our own people.
If we don't want whites and other races to call us that nasty, insulting and degrading N-word, then for the love of God and for the love of each other, let's stop calling each other niggers.
When black gangsta rappers, comedians, teenage kids and other black men and women go around calling each other that word, even jokingly and among friends, then how can we honestly and seriously expect whites and other races to take us seriously about respect, dignity and racial pride?
I believe that maybe, if all of us black men and women would stop calling each other niggers in our day-to-day conversation and show that we will no more tolerate being called this by members of our own race than we would by members of other races, then the bigots of other races will never again dare to utter that word to us or about us - because then they will finally understand that not a single one of us will ever tolerate that nasty, ugly and degrading word in referring to our race.
But as long as we go around thinking that it's somehow acceptable for us to call each other niggers, we must seem like hypocrites who really aren't serious about racial pride and dignity.
BENNY R. FOSTER
Norfolk, Sept. 10, 1995 by CNB