Open letter to Tim Allen

[warinbear]

Tim Allen, in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, said "If I have no intent, if I show no intent, if I clearly am not a racist, then how can 'n*****' be bad coming out of my mouth?"

Here's the simple answer to your question, Tim. Whether you are a racist is not at issue; whether what you said is racist is the issue. Your intent does not

Comments

[droewyn]

In the same way that saying "I want to kill [political figure]" is a threat and will be treated as such regardless of whether you mean it.

[starcat_jewel]

Some people's children, sheesh.

The word doesn't bother me in the Benjamin January mysteries, because they're set in the 1830s, and people talked that way back then. Now, a white person using it is self-marking as either overtly racist or an insensitive asshole (unless it's in a conversation about racism). Only time, and the diminishing of institutionalized racism in our society, will ever "reclaim" that word.