WW welcomes letters to the editor via mail, e-mail or fax. Letters must be signed by the author and include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Preference will be given to letters of 250 words or less. Editor's note: The controversy over John Callahan's April 26 cartoon continues. As evidence, read the latest batch of letters about the cartoon, which pictured the pope singing a line from a Patti Smith song. Or consider the rally the local chapter of the NAACP held in Northeast Portland Saturday. While a number of letters and phone calls defended our publication of the cartoon, we've come to a different conclusion: We shouldn't have done it. We shouldn't have published it because unless it is used in appropriate context, the use of the "N-word" is still so explosive that it tends to overshadow any larger meaning that may be derived from its use. We shouldn't have published it because the majority of our readers didn't get the attempt at humor, the coupling of the image of the pope (who has recently embraced rock and roll) with one of rock's most provocative artists. Finally, we shouldn't have published it because some have used it as a way to attack John Callahan. While Callahan has made a career out of offending people, his motive in doing so is to pierce the veil of our collective phoniness, not to express any bigotry. We apologize to those in this community who are offended by the cartoon and assure them that we remain committed to cultural awareness and staff diversity. In addition, we are helping to organize a forum with a number of people who have spoken out on the issues raised by John Callahan's cartoon.   WWEAK, MISGUIDED We, the Coalition of Black Men, are writing this letter on behalf of the African-American community of Portland and throughout Oregon. We are outraged and offended at Callahan's cartoon in a recent edition of Willamette Week [April 26, 2000]. In that cartoon he chose to use the word "nigger"; we find that weak, misguided and insulting! That derogatory term has no place in your attempt at humor. "Nigger" is negative and demeaning. You and your editorial staff owe the African-American community an apology and a promise to use better judgment in the future! Josiah Hill Raleigh Lewis Macceo Pettis A. Halim Rahsaan Bruce Watts Morgan Dickerson The Steering Committee of the Coalition of Black Men GET A LIFE I read the editor's note in the most recent Willamette Week regarding the cartoon by Callahan. As an African-American woman, I do not use the word "nigger," nor do I condone its use by any other African Americans. It is especially demeaning for any Caucasian person to use it in any way, shape, form or fashion. I understand free speech, and I'm sure there are a great many people who think that Callahan is funny. I don't. He denigrates race, religion and culture to the extent that even if he is not racist or a white supremacist, he sure comes across as one. Maybe he should look up the origins of the word "nigger" in relation to African Americans to understand why this word is so abhorrent to African Americans. Callahan needs to get a life, quit making fun of that which he does not understand, and begin to comprehend the ramifications of his actions. Your paper and his cartoon give license for others to use that word, and it makes no sense to continue racial and ethnic discrimination and prejudice in this country. Leslie A. Goodlow-Baldwin Mason Street IN A WORD As a feminist, one of those Callahan scores on predictably, I support his right to mouth off in the artform of his choice. As an historian, I know the world's mass miseries, Inquisitions, pogroms and religious and racial persecutions are not launched by cadres of clowns, court jesters, doppelgängers and cartoonists who puncture balloons of taboo and euphemism for a living, but exactly by those crowds of self-righteously humorless folk who complain about Callahan's political incorrectness. As a linguist, I know the word "nigger" derives from "niger," the Latin word for black. It is not an inherently derogatory word. Look at a map of Africa. The Niger River begets two countries, Niger and Nigeria. It is a place name, and a proud one, retained by independent African states. In the American south, "nigra" devolved from English speakers' pronunciation of the French "negre," which, like the Latin "niger," referred to the large Western and Central sub-Saharan region from which people were kidnapped and shipped. Slavery was the evil. The word "nigger" originally described a place and its people. In the same way, the word "slave" comes from the Slavic people who were traded in the rough Eastern European markets of the early Middle Ages. Words are compact history. We can taboo them, or we can learn from them. The use of culturally canned avoidance phrases like "the N-word" is so infantile, so smugly prissy, so false. Mass-marketed PC will not get us where we want to be: a more self-aware, and mutually aware, humanity. Callahan's noir wit might be bitter, but it's better than no wit at all. Barbara Mor Southeast 64th Avenue   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published May 10, 2000