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United States News Title: Black Daily Shocks Many With Front-Page 'Nigger' Headline - "Initially, I was going to make 'nigger' about three columns wide, and then have a subhead," Martin said. "I was not going to push the envelope -- I was going to chuck the envelope. Black Daily Shocks Many With Front-Page 'Nigger' Headline By Mark Fitzgerald Published: June 08, 2006 9:05 PM ET CHICAGO When Roland S. Martin took over as executive editor of the famous black-oriented daily Chicago Defender, the first thing he did was initiate a "50-foot rule" for the tabloid's front page. Graphics and headlines had to be bold enough to grab the attention of a passerby from 50 feet. He certainly accomplished that Thursday, when the newspaper ran this headline and subhead: "TAKE A STAND. Black America, isn't it about time we made up our mind about the word nigger?" At the end of a long workday, Martin said in an interview he thought the headline would finally spark a debate the word in the African-American community, which variously sees it as an especially ugly epithet, a teasing put-down, and even a term of endearment. The headline referred to an Associated Press story about a panel discussion in Harlem about the origins and continuing meanings of the word. And if Chicagoans were shocked to see the word on the front page of a black daily, who knows how they would have reacted had Martin gone ahead with his original plan for the front page. "Initially, I was going to make 'nigger' about three columns wide, and then have a subhead," Martin said. "I was not going to push the envelope -- I was going to chuck the envelope. But if we (at the Defender) can't raise the issue, then who can?" Martin was talked out of his original front page idea when staffers pointed out that it would put the word right below the big and recently redesigned Defender masthead, with its new motto: "Honest. Balanced. Truthful. Unapologetically Black." Martin had been thinking of raising the issue of black America's conflicted views of the word. When the AP story moved on an otherwise slow news day, he saw his chance. The cover was the top for more than an hour on the talk show Martin conducts daily on WVON-AM. People may have been shocked by the appearance of the word, but every e-mail supported his decision to raise the topic that way, Martin said. "It got people talking about the issue," he said. The AP story itself avoided the word "nigger," except to quote a book title. Instead, the story referred to the 'N-word,' the normal style at the Defender. "If it is a valuable quote, I would go with it," Martin said. "I don't particularly like 'n----." Martin wrote about his own decision to stop using the word in a column that also appeared Thursday. "I'm not going to sit here and act like a neutral observer. I've said nigger for years," he wrote. "And even though it was coming out of my mouth, it always bothered me. Yet it was so ingrained in my psyche that I didn't mind using it." A year ago, though, he stopped, Martin wrote, because "I simply reached the point that I could not continue to use a word that for years -- and even today -- represented white hatred against African Americans."
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