Randall Kennedy

What we have here is a class involving a person who is a teacher interacting with students

talking about subjects in which it would be perfectly understandable why this word would emerge as a subject of conversation.

Now, under those circumstances, it's somehow wrong for a teacher to utter this word.

In my view, the answer is no.

And I said that 20 years ago.

I say it even more emphatically now.

Yes.

I agree with what you say.

Yes, words are powerful.

Words do matter.

And so I am certainly not suggesting that people be lax.

I'm not suggesting that people be irresponsible.

It's precisely because words matter, however, that we need to be willing to face words and grapple with words and talk about words and talk about the history of words precisely because words matter.

And among other things, it seems to me it's important to understand that words can mean different things in different contexts.

It's not the case that a word means the same thing in every context.

The word discriminating.

Sometimes it's a very bad thing.

That person discriminates.

And again, intonation of voice means something.

If I say, oh, that person discriminates, and I'm obviously being disapproving, implicitly what I'm saying is that person distinguishes between things on an unjustifiable basis, and that's a bad thing.