NFL may penalize players for slurs

[The Straight Story]

The National Football League’s competition committee may attempt to clean up the language on the field next season. Under consideration is a rule that would penalize a team 15 yards if a player uses the N-word. A second infraction, and the player could be ejected from a game.

Ozzie Newsome, one of the committee members and general manager of the Baltimore Ravens, told reporters Saturday that the league is investigating ways to reduce the use of racial and gender-related slurs sometimes used during games.

Newsome is in Indianapolis, Ind., for the NFL’s scouting combine, an annual week-long showcase where college football players perform physical and mental tests in front of NFL coaches, general managers and scouts.

Speaking at the combine, John Wooten, head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance – the agency that monitors diversity in the NFL – said, "I will be totally shocked if the competition committee does not uphold us on what we're trying to do ... We want this word (N-word) to be policed from the parking lot to the equipment room to the locker room."

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/22/nfl-to-adopt-15-yardpenaltyforuseofracialslur.html

[pipi_k]

1. I wasn't even aware

of this being a problem out on the field, between the players, although I would not be in the least surprised to find out that it's a HUGE problem with the fans...

[Jesus Malverde]

3. This is actually a crackdown on black players. The term is extremely common slang.

Nigga (/ˈnɪɡə/, pronounced identically to nigger in some dialects) is a colloquial term used in Black English Vernacular that began as an eye dialect form of the word nigger (a word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger, meaning the color "black&quot .

In practice, its use and meaning are heavily dependent on context. Presently, the word nigga is used more liberally among younger members of all races and ethnicities in the United States. In addition to African Americans, other ethnic groups have adopted the term as part of their vernacular.

There is conflicting popular opinion on whether there is any meaningful difference between nigga and nigger as a spoken term. Many people consider the terms to be equally pejorative, and the use of nigga both in and outside African American communities remains controversial. H. Lewis Smith, author of Bury that Sucka: A Scandalous Affair with the N-word, believes that "replacing the 'er' with an 'a' changes nothing other than the pronunciation" and the African American Registry notes, "Brother (Brotha) and Sister (Sistah or Sista) are terms of endearment. Nigger was and still is a word of disrespect." The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights group, condemns use of both nigga and nigger.

Some African-Americans only consider nigga offensive when used by Americans of other races, its use outside a defined social group being an unwelcome cultural appropriation. Used by blacks, the term may indicate "solidarity or affection", similar to the usage of the words dude, homeboy, and bro. Others consider "nigga" non-offensive except when directed from a non-African-American towards an African-American. Yet others have derided this as hypocritical and harmful, enabling white racists to use the word and confusing the issue over nigger.

The term "nigga, please", first used in the 1970s by comics such as Paul Mooney as "a funny punctuation in jokes about Blacks," is now heard routinely in comedy routines by African Americans. The growing use of the term is often attributed to its ubiquity in modern American hip hop music. Examples include Niggaz Wit' Attitude (N.W.A.), A Tribe Called Quest's "Sucka Nigga"; Notorious B.I.G.'s song, "The Realest Niggaz"; Jay-Z's Jigga That Nigga, Nigga What, Nigga Who and Niggas in Paris; Dj Khaled's I Wish You Would; and Snoop Dogg's For All My Niggaz And Bitches. One of the earliest uses of the term was in the 1983 song New York, New York by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Ol' Dirty Bastard uses the term 76 times in his Nigga Please album (not including repetitions in choruses). This is reflected in the term's wide use in modern American gang culture. According to a Texas Monthly article about Houston gangs, many Hispanic street gang members call each other niggah.

Comedian Chris Rock's routine "Niggas vs. Black People" distinguishes a nigga, which he defined as a "low-expectation-having motherfucker", from a "black person". In contrast, Tupac Shakur distinguished between nigger and nigga: "Niggers was the ones on the rope, hanging off the thing; niggas is the ones with gold ropes, hanging out at clubs." Tupac, who has been credited with legitimizing the term, said his song N.I.G.G.A. stood for "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigga

In some ways the term has been co-opted like queer.

I think african american popular culture makes the owners and networks uncomfortable.

[backscatter712]

2. Then Washington's team should be in big trouble! n/t

[Crepuscular]

4. word police

who decides whether the word in question is being used as a slur or in another context, such as a term of affection?

[The Straight Story]

5. DU'ers

[CFLDem]

6. JHC

The nannies are never happy.