In Time Magazine, Jeffrey Kluger describes ways in which hate epithets become disused — public censure, appropriation by the victim group, and by changed construction: During the early years of the civil rights movement, when Negro was a perfectly acceptable term but its ugly cousin was already falling out of favor, southern politicians like Alabama Gov. George Wallace grew fond of the pronunciation “nig-ra,” luxuriating in the first syllable and then surrendering only grudgingly to the hedging of the second. […]

Categories: Hate Crimes • Tags: epithets, Hate speech, Jeffrey Kluger