Reply #25: I don't know if I'd go that far

[guitar man]

Banning a word altogether? I'm not sure that's a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I find people hurling that word to be completely repugnant, but a total ban on the word would have negative consequences.

What if I'm writing a book or screenplay, a historical piece set in the '30s for instance. I have a scene where the Klan is chasing a black man down. What are my Klan characters suppose to be yelling "hey, get that African American....yeah, c'mon, let's get this black guy" ?

If I need to portray repugnant characters, they need to be, well, repugnant.

I wouldn't want to try and whitewash that history any more than the holocaust. If we forget the past, we're bound to repeat it's mistakes.