Other View: The 'N' Word - Parents, grandparents 'hated it, but we used it' FEBRUARY 22, 2007 (wcsu) - "In my neighborhood, we used 'nigger' as a term of endearment. Our parents hated it, our grandparents hated it, but we used it (and) had a different meaning for it. We had a different context for it."

Otis Gowens, Dayton Daily News

White students "are clearly acting differently when in the company of people of color ... versus how whites tend to interact ... when they only are around other whites."

Professor Leslie Picca, University of Dayton (discussing her survey of 627 white students who maintained "racial diaries")

"Listening to young people discuss it, their attitude is it is a common term that they use among themselves, and it is OK. I don't accept that. I don't buy that. I believe there is a lack of moral fiber. I believe there is a lack not so much of intellectual education, but education around what is right and what is wrong."

Richard Melson, Dayton Education Council

"I think it's the pop culture. I don't think they have a connection. ... If you had a connection, you would be able to understand why an older person would cringe to hear you call

(the 'N word')."

Natasha Williams, WHIO-TV

"This young man here never experienced what I (at 54 years of age)... experienced. He doesn't know what I went through. I would never use that word."

Julian Davis, Dayton Director of Police

"If you don't know your history, if you don't know where that word has come from, then you don't know where that word is going."

Professor John "Turk" Logan, Central State University

"Once (students) have just a little education, a little knowledge about this word, what it means and what it can do, they begin to understand there is so much power to it."

Jim Schurrer, teacher, Springfield Catholic Central High School

"It's a billion-dollar industry surrounding this word. ... Unfortunately, it is something a lot of us have used."

Darron Johnson, Central State University student

"We just completely opened up our community and allowed anything to be marketed to our young people."

Sean Walton, Community Action Partnership
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