[Verboten Racial Slur], Please!

Jonathan Blanks | July 10, 2007

Yesterday, the NAACP laid to rest one of the most-beloved objects of Hip-Hop -- the N-word :

The "n-word" is dead according to the NAACP, which staged a mock funeral for the racial slur during its annual convention in Detroit yesterday, complete with a horse-drawn caisson, black roses and a plywood casket.

"Today, we're not just burying the n-word, we're taking it out of our spirit," Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick told hundreds of enthusiastic mourners, who slowly marched in the quarter-mile-long procession downtown.

As a black man who is also of Irish descent, I have to appreciate a man named "Kwame Kilpatrick." And while I hate the word as much as anyone, and probably more than most, I can't get over this ridiculousness:

"We gather burying all the things that go with the n-word. We have to bury the 'pimps' and 'hos' that goes with it. Die, n-word, and we don't want to see you 'round here no more," Mr. Kilpatrick said.

If the NAACP really wants to confront language issues, perhaps they should focus on the importance of subject-verb agreement and promoting education in the community instead of "burying" words that 'ain't goin' no where.'