N-word debate has racist basis

The idiocy of political correctness (quite apart from its strategy to destroy critical debate) is that it makes no distinction between who said or did what, and in what time period ["Don't shrink from this vile expression,'' Opinion, Jan. 9]. Judging 19th century people by 21st century standards is just plain stupid.

When Mark Twain wrote, the dreaded "n-word" was a mere idiom used for a particular group of people, no different from - and certainly no worse than - the thousands of such words used for other groups of people in his culture. Was the "Negro" (another shunned word today) looked down on? Certainly! And this was not a merely white phenomena then - or now. But again, one must take into consideration the period and not judge those involved by standards they neither set nor lived under.

But the most dishonest part of this whole crusade against the dreaded N-word is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the word. Television, films, books and the culture at large show that blacks freely throw around the dreaded N-word - and nobody cares. This irrefutably proves that all of this commotion has nothing to do with the word at all, but rather, who uses it.

If Mark Twain had been James Baldwin, would anybody care? No! - and that's where racism comes into play. For the crusade against the dreaded N-word involves not the action, but the race of the person who commits the action, proving once again, this is not a pro-black issue but an anti-white one.

If we're going to insist on all this sensitivity, then let's be honest and have it across the board and not just limited to one segment of society.

Valerie H. Protopapas

Huntington Station