In Bid to Ban Racial Slur, Blacks Are on Both Sides

Days after Michael Richards’s racist tirade at a Los Angeles comedy club, Leroy G. Comrie Jr., a New York City councilman, seethed as he listened to some black teenagers on a Queens street spewing out the same word Mr. Richards had been using.

“They were saying ‘nigga’ or ‘niggas’ every other word,” said Mr. Comrie, who is black. “I could tell they didn’t get it. They don’t realize how their self-image is debilitated when they use this awful word in public.”

So Mr. Comrie sponsored a resolution for a moratorium on the use of the n-word in New York City, prompting a spate of similar proposals in half a dozen local governments across four states in recent weeks. The New York City Council is scheduled to discuss Mr. Comrie’s proposal tomorrow and vote on it on Wednesday; the City Council in Paterson, N.J., and the Westchester County Legislature both unanimously approved such bans recently.

Anahad O'Conner

New York continues the march toward its status as a police state. Eventually, New Yorkers will have to stay in their apartments and houses, standing very still and quiet with their eyes closed in order to avoid committing some petty tyrant's pet peeve.

One day, Mr. Comrie might find himself being frog-marched off to the firing squad or standing on a platform with a rope around his neck. He will be utterly bewildered as to how he arrived there. It may never happen, but if it does, it will be the result of one of two cases. Either his usefulness to his totalitarian masters will have ended or the mob, fed up with his petty tyranny, will take their just reward out on his hide.