Detroit – There was no mourning at this funeral.
Hundreds of onlookers cheered Monday as the NAACP put to rest a long- standing expression of racism by holding a public burial for the N-word during the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s annual convention.
Delegates from across the country marched from downtown Detroit’s Cobo Center to Hart Plaza. Two Percheron horses pulled a pine box adorned with a bouquet of fake black roses and a black ribbon printed with a derivation of the word.
The coffin and a headstone will be placed at historically black Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery.
“Today we’re not just burying the N-word, we’re taking it out of our spirit,” said Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. “We gather burying all the things that go with the N-word. We have to bury the ‘pimps’ and the ‘hos’ that go with it.” He continued: “Die, N-word, and we don’t want to see you ’round here no more.”
The N-word has been used as a slur against blacks for more than a century. It remains a symbol of racism, but also is used by blacks when referring to other blacks, especially in comedy routines and rap and hip-hop music.
“This was the greatest child … racism ever birthed,” the Rev. Otis Moss III, assistant pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, said in his eulogy.
Public discussion on the word’s use increased last year following a tirade by “Seinfeld” actor Michael Richards, who used it repeatedly during a Los Angeles comedy routine and later issued a public apology.
The issue about racially insensitive remarks heated up earlier this year after talk-show host Don Imus described black members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos” on April 4.
Black leaders, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have challenged the entertainment industry and the American public to stop using the N-word and other racial slurs.
Minister and rap icon Kurtis Blow called for people to stop buying music by artists who use offensive language.
“They wouldn’t make rap songs if you didn’t buy them. Stop supporting the stuff you don’t want to hear,” said Blow.
