Here's a quote from the NAACP re Senator Robert Byrd...they are hardly a bastion of rightwingism....but I know you know that....
Criticizes U.S. Senator For Using 'N-Word'
Date posted: 03/09/01
njournalg.com
(Special to the NNPA) - The NAACP has called "repulsive and revealing" Sen. Robert C. Byrd's (D-W.Va.) use of the word "nigger" in a taped interview on FOX-TV's "Fox News Sunday." Byrd has apologized for using the word.
The context came as Byrd, a member of the Ku Klux Klan as a young man, talked about the importance of harmony among different racial groups.
"My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that," the senator recalled. "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time-I'm going to use that word."
"The fact that Byrd felt free enough to make that kind of statement about any group," NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume told the Associated Press, "suggests that any progress he has made on race is relative."
The interview, which was taped on Friday, March 2 and broadcast this past Sunday, March 4, was followed up on "Fox News Sunday" by a written statement of apology by Byrd after it aired. Show host Tony Snow read Byrd's statement over the air.
Most dictionaries define "nigger" as both an ignorant person and as a derogatory term for African-Americans, although for two centuries the word has as largely been used by white Americans as the latter.
For Full Text, See New Journal and Guide, March 8-14, 2001 |
