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Language is a powerful but dangerous thing. When used properly, language can bring understanding and enlightenment. When twisted, it can bring confusion and darkness.

That is what makes the present NFL debate over the usage of the N-word both intriguing and sad. The sadness comes, frankly, from the fact this debate is still necessary. Dont take my word for it, take a trailblazers.

Art Shell is 67 years old. He grew up in an utterly segregated society in Charleston, S.C., to become a man elected to both the Pro Football and College Football Halls of Fame. He would also be the first black man to serve as a head coach in the NFL in the modern era (the first since Fritz Pollard in 1923) when he took over the Oakland Raiders in 1989, a passage of 66 years.

Later, Shell would become the NFLs senior vice president of football operations, the highest ranking African-American in the league.

But Shell is more than that and so brings perspective and wisdom to this debate over how the NFL intends to enforce an already existing rule against the use of threatening or abusive language if a game official hears the N-word. Good luck enforcing it. Yet Shell still favors the effort because he didnt grow up with hip hop music that has used that vile term so often its sucked the meaning out of it for some young people.

Shell not only grew up before hip hop, he also grew up before integration.

Shell saw water fountains he could not drink from and swimming pools he could not use. He never played with or against a white player until he arrived in Oakland in 1968 and never had a white coach until then either. None of that mattered because he was one of the best left tackles in history, but unlike so many kids throwing the N-word around today like it had no meaning he also saw a line on a bus in front of which he could not sit and people bleeding to change that.

So for Art Shell there is really nothing to debate.

That is the most vile word, Shell said yesterday. It was created to make a certain group of people feel like they were less than human. How does that word become a term of endearment?

Thats a question without an answer, especially when you hear some argue that it now has two meanings, depending on whos using it. To a degree I know thats true because Ive heard it often enough in locker rooms and larger society.

Original post:
Borges: N-word a lost debate