By Alex Ness
August 4, 2025
This isn't about should be, should have been or what is or is not. The suggestion is how powerful a word is that both positive use and negative use result in cancellations in media, culture and memory. Are there words like this that have such power? Some might point to the attitude towards the Jews that led to the Holocaust, but the term Juden is a legitimate word, meaning Jew in the language considered. We live in dangerous times, but hardly less dangerous when considering genocide and other political terms that have power, when used less surgically accurate.
The N word, used without mincing the full use to a letter, destroyed one white person's fame and reputation. It destroyed the future of a band, of different ethnicities who used it to demonstrate how it feels to be on the end of the use of that word. But it also then led to fear of more such instances, censorship and more. While Paula Deen honestly admitted to using the word in her past, and mentioned how the days she referred to were deeply different now over those days. Whether she used it beyond the past was generally why her honest response about the past wasn't used to forgive use in the near present. People even used this objection to her, when really not liking the food she cooked, or attitude towards healthy and unhealthy foods.
There are, of course, in both cases, people who find it convenient to blame the use of the word for not liking or agreeing with someone, when they already weren't fans. This blog tries to consider the media of our culture. The word in question is rightfully reviled. When racists and honorable users are both destroyed by the word, it means, a word was used that we still cannot understand the depths, and of the shame of it. The debate continues... but I don't expect things to get better, however much I think we become more aware of how it has lingered in the depths of our society's gut.
THE WORD
BLESSID UNION OF SOULS song I BELIEVE
Paula Deen Her Wikipedia page
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