…
is quite okay, in the context he used it. As I commented to the NBR thread on this:
For the record, and despite I can't immediately see where I would have any common philosophical or political tenets to Hone (certainly not economic, as he believes in the free lunch) - unless he has self-determination in his contradictory mish-mash somewhere - but, for the purpose he used the word 'nigger', from its historical context, I thought it was quite apt. It conveyed precisely what he meant, and he was certainly deliberate in that. There was a great interview on one of the TV channels, where he was interviewed on this and he gave the derivation of his use of the word - more correctly, 'nigga' - from the stage production, Oklahoma, with reference to Key as a plantation owner, in a way that was both clever and witty.No one would dispute a novelist's right to use 'nigger/nigga’ for aesthetic effect, so why shouldn't a politician use it for political effect if it expresses, precisely, what he wants to convey?
The nonsense
confab over this is down to two reasons:
Firstly,
the average Kiwi’s preciousness and 'umbrage taking' which doesn’t allow them to understand a
principle anymore, and has turned too many of them into the humourless, humour Taliban. That and a childishness about using grown-up words.
