Killing Me Softly with The "N" Word

The much maligned, and often deservedly so, Dr. Laura Schlessinger called it quits this week from her highly rated radio show after stirring up controversy by saying the word nigger almost a dozen times while pretending to offer advice to a black woman who was feeling targeted and discriminated against by her white husband’s friends & family. This is not a shock, not only because Dr. Laura is a misogynist—she tends to side with husbands over their wives—but also because she’s not a licensed psychologist like most decent advice columnists. Dr. Laura is a physiologist, a doctor that studies how the body works. If I wanted some advice on osmosis or homeostasis I’d ask Dr. Laura, but relationship advice? Come on!

Anyway, even though she apologized for “articulat[ing] the ‘n’ word all the way out,” (as if she had the street cred to have pulled off a simple nigga) she’s gone—or at least she will be when her season ends. Good riddance.

But of course this has caused the inevitable argument about The “N” Word, and whether or not it’s ever appropriate to use it, to rear it’s nappy head, again. The issue, as it’s being defined by certain people, isn’t simply whether or not it’s ever okay for a white person to say nigger, but whether anyone should use it at all, EVER.

(Read the rest on the latest From the Bottom Up on The Urban Twist)