Piers Morgan: The N-Word Should Be Whipped Like a Slave
Piers Morgan, British person, has taken to the virtual pages of the United Kingdom's sootiest rag to pontificate about a vernacular matter: the use of the n-word among Americans.
With this op-ed, Piers Morgan has proven himself among the top stylists of ideas in online tabloid letters, right up there with Frank Bruni and Thomas Friedman.
Let's dissect Piers's essay. First, he defines the issue:
N****r.
A 6-letter noun in the English language which the dictionary defines as 'a contemptuous term for a black or dark-skinned person'.
Thank you, Piers. We didn't know.
Then he wipes his hands clean of the word's taint and places vague blame:
It's such an inflammatory and offensive word that for any high profile white person to publicly use it, without abbreviating to 'N-word', is rightly tantamount to professional suicide and personal opprobrium.
I don't use it; would never use it. But it has become astonishingly ubiquitous in modern American society.
Finally, he outlines a solution to the problem of the word "n****r" by using violent imagery that is in no way evocative of a mass system of free labor that enslaved millions of black people for decades in America.
Better, surely, to have [the n-word] expunged completely. Eradicated, obliterated, tied to a literary post and whipped into such brutal submission that it never rears its vicious head again.
Thank you, Piers. We appreciate how your commentary has pushed this debate forward.
[Photo of Piers with some friends via AP]