The Slur That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Why did newspapers avoid saying George Allen’s favorite “N-word?”

By Josh Eidelson, Yale University

Let’s say you’re a major newspaper. A photo comes across your desk, depicting of an act of vandalism allegedly committed by a sitting U.S. Senator up for re-election. The vandalism reads “nigger.” Do you print the photo?

Many of us would say yes. The sources are credible, the story is newsworthy, and the image—those six letters together—communicates the explosive vileness of the act in a way that a descriptive allusion simply couldn’t.

Now let’s say there is no wall. No vandalism. Instead it’s an act of speech—several acts, in several times and places. But the word and the speaker are the same. The image that defines the story isn’t a photograph—it’s the word itself. Those six letters standing together: “nigger.” College classmates of Senator George Allen (R-VA) remember him using the word—and those reports helped contribute to his upset defeat on Tuesday. Those six letters together are the most effective visual symbol for the sound Allen allegedly made when referring to black people. So if you’re covering the Allen story, you print the word in the article, right?

Not if you’re The New York Times, the Washington Post, or The Los Angeles Times.

A L.A. Times article headlined “Words Test Loyalties of Va. Voters” contained the word nowhere in the piece. Instead, readers learned that Allen allegedly used an “anti-black slur.” The paper chose to leave it to its intrepid readers to spell out the word for themselves, as if its own good name were preserved by only alluding to the notorious epithet rather than putting it into print.

In an email to Campus Progress, Kent Zelas, a readers’ representative for the L.A. Times, wrote that “the Times aims to avoid using slurs or any language commonly recognized as offensive to readers unless it’s found to be necessary to the understanding of the story.” He added that “sometimes, the very notoriety of the word can make it unnecessary to spell out.” Indeed, I doubt many readers were left wondering which anti-black slur Allen had chosen. But the choices reporters and editors make don’t only determine how comprehensible their reporting is; they shape the impact it has on their readers. Alluding to something terrible rather than showing it, be it battlefield carnage or bigoted language, softens its impact.

Asked about the Roanoke (VA) Times’s references to “an inflammatory racial epithet to refer to black people,” Newsroom Manager Nona Nelson referred a reporter to the paper’s Professional Standards and Content Policies Guide, which advises that “where possible, we will avoid use of obscene, vulgar, profane, or otherwise offensive language.” Avoiding “offensive” language lumps “nigger” in with other words that aren’t supposed to escape the lips of polite journalists and politicians. Many papers (though not the Los Angeles Times or The New York Times) similarly avoided printing the word “shit” when a discussion erupted surrounding President George W. Bush’s use of the word at the United Nations. Some called it an epithet. The difference here should be obvious, but alluding to both “epithets”—even if the allusions are clear—obscures the distinction between them. The word “shit,” when used by Bush, diminishes the thing he’s talking about. The word “nigger,” when used by Allen, degrades millions of people. To treat the same—as words to be talked around with a wink and an allusion—risks confusing rudeness and racism.

The confusion isn’t limited to newsprint. Last month on Northern California’s top-rated morning radio show, host Jack Getty, who had devoted a chunk of one summer show to the humor of Bush “dropping a s-bomb” with U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, was complaining that there’s nothing newsworthy about a “30-year-old n-bomb.” Talking about “n-bombs” and “s-bombs” only makes sense if you see both words as naughty epithets most of us use every now and then in private but know better than to let slip when the wrong people are listening. The way the media handled Allen’s alleged utterances could make one forget that some Americans still view the “n-word” as acceptable for private use when referring to blacks, only to be avoided in public—not much better or worse than Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) telling Rolling Stone that the president “fucked up” the war in Iraq.

This conception of the word “nigger” as merely foul language, rather than as shorthand amongst whites for their own supremacy, underlies two misguided approaches to the word. If it’s just profanity, some might reasonably argue that people should “let it all hang out” in the name of honesty and political incorrectness, letting the “n-bombs” land where they may. Others would bar the word completely from print and discourse, preventing a full description of the nature of others’ remarks in the press—and abjuring literature that records the word’s use.

There is an alternate way to approach this word: Barring seismic shifts in how the word “nigger” is used and understood (don’t hold your breath), we can condemn its use by whites to refer to blacks while describing that usage by quoting the word itself. A New York Times headline reading “2 Ex-Acquaintances of Senator Allen Say He Called Blacks ‘Niggers’” would in no way condone Allen’s utterances. Instead, it would communicate them specifically, and leave the value judgment to the readers.

Our newspapers would serve us better if they treated Allen’s use of the word “nigger” less like Bush saying “shit” and more like another quote attributed to Allen: that he moved to Virginia “because the blacks know their place.” Both calling blacks “niggers” and implying they should “know their place” are racist—not merely rude—acts. There’s no need or cause to dilute that disturbance with a paraphrase.

 
Josh Eidelson received his B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Yale in May.

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