{"id":47856,"date":"2012-06-08T11:18:51","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T16:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=47856"},"modified":"2013-11-08T04:18:58","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:18:58","slug":"jay-smooth-on-ones-right-to-use-the-n-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/06\/08\/jay-smooth-on-ones-right-to-use-the-n-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Smooth on One&#8217;s Right to Use the N-Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week Gwenyth Paltrow <a href=\"http:\/\/observer.com\/2012\/06\/gwyneth-paltrow-sort-of-uses-the-n-word-on-twitter-but-not-really\/\" target=\"_blank\">tweeted<\/a>a photograph of\u00a0Kanye West and Jay-Z performing in France along with the text: &#8220;Ni**as in paris for real.&#8221;\u00a0 The tweet started a conversation about her right to use the n-word, even with asterisks. Paltrow defended herself, claiming that it is the name of the song they were performing (which it is).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/06\/27.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-47861\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/06\/27-500x312.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/06\/27-500x312.jpg 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/06\/27.jpg 583w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At <a href=\"http:\/\/colorlines.com\/archives\/2012\/06\/jay_smooth_offers_gwyneth_paltrow_a_teachable_moment_dont_get_too_comfortable_with_the_n_word.html\" target=\"_blank\">Colorlines<\/a>, Jay Smooth offers a characteristically entertaining and insightful analysis of the incident. \u00a0What&#8217;s interesting, he observes, isn&#8217;t so much her use of the word, but her defensiveness about it. \u00a0Here&#8217;s how he puts it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>No matter how justified you feel, as soon as you start arguing about your right to use the n&#8211;, that is a sign that you have become too attached to the n&#8211;.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He calls on her to apologize and move on with her life because&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The right to use that word is not a right worth fighting for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A great watch:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/43486932\" height=\"300\" width=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week Gwenyth Paltrow tweeteda photograph of\u00a0Kanye West and Jay-Z performing in France along with the text: &#8220;Ni**as in paris for real.&#8221;\u00a0 The tweet started a conversation about her right to use the n-word, even with asterisks. Paltrow defended herself, claiming that it is the name of the song they were performing (which it is). [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,23384,283,285,1760,1757],"class_list":["post-47856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-celebrity","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47856"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58343,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47856\/revisions\/58343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}