On March 1, 2007, the New York City Council voted unanimously 49-0 in favor of a motion to encourage New Yorkers to stop using the “N-word” and to learn its racist provenance. On July 1, 2013, CNN’s Don Lemon explained the origins of the N-word. Over the past 15 years, use of this word has declined, but it still continues to be used by many and remains offensive.
There is another word that needs to be banned and is offensive, especially to those of us who practice a particular religion or who have ancestors and relatives who died in concentration camps. It is the “H-word.” Post-World War II, German law has been used to prosecute racist and antisemitic threats and slurs, with sentences of up to five years in prison.
Anyone who tries to draw a comparison of someone’s actions or philosophy by speech or in writing to that of Adolf Hitler should be labeled as racist, anti-American or — at the very least — an uneducated bigot.