Apologies to Jesse Jackson
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s11e01-with-apologies-to-jesse-jackson
South Park is one of my favorite shows of all time and it's because of the content. In an episode of Wheel Fortune, there was a boy who said "Nigger" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njrY-6ISsg8&feature=related), and South Park featured this in their episode "Apologies to Jesse Jackson." While so funny, it raises the question of whether people should be able to use certain words, which challenges freedom of speech. Furthermore, the irony of the piece is also essential because at the end the only reason the term "Nigger guy" was banned was because it would be used against White people. It is easy for someone to say “I know how you feel” or “I understand,” which is what Stan tried to communicate to Token, but reality is, you do not understand. Since there is no other group on earth that has experience 300 years of Chattel slavery and afterwards ongoing racial discrimination, no one can understand how it would feel to be called “Nigger” besides a Black person. However, I’m not saying that Black people are the only ones who experience this because it’s the same with other racial slurs as well. A Black person can’t understand what it feels like for a Mexican to be called a “Wet Back” or a Chinese person to be called “Chink.” The only thing we can do is acknowledge that it is wrong and that we can sympathize but not totally empathize because a different history comes with each derogatory word. We shouldn’t have to ban words because that is absurd, but we should pay attention to context and how those words affect different groups of people. I think that the makers of South Park want us to see how its unrealistic to try to identify with every group of people that is different then ourselves because sometimes the very aspect making you different from another group prevents you from ever understanding them fully.
JoAnna - good start. This is too short, however. Think about how you can push these farther. What do you think the creators of SP are trying to do? Do you think they succeed?
ReplyDeleteI agree that words should not be banned; I understand that many words can be hurtful and derogatory, but simply banning them from mainstream media obviously has not done much to decrease the use of the word - if anything, people use it more because it's human nature to rebel. In addition, the English language is constantly changing and re-shaping itself with history, so words that were banned at one time are no longer banned, and vice-versa, proving that no matter what the "rules" may say, people will use the words how they want.
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