Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Uh oh, Daily Show finds the N-word in N.C.

The blowback on GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry from a story about a rock at the entrance to his family's hunting camp that once had the N-word etched on it spewed some dust North Carolina's way - on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" Monday.

In a skit with fake correspondent Wyatt Cenac, who is black and from Texas, the show takes states across the nation to task over having places on their maps that are named the N-word. The show claims there are over 100 places with such names nationwide. North Carolina gets tagged for a place called N---- Head Creek.

We don't know if such a place still exists. But we do know that back in 2003, the N.C. legislature brought up the subject of racially offensive names for places in the state and moved to remove them. Among the names were N--- Head Creek between New Salem and Marshville in Union County, N----- Head mountain in Clay County, N----- Spring and N----- Skull Mountain, in Haywood County and N----- Bay located between Swan Island and Currituck Banks in Currituck County.

The legislation required the counties to submit new names to the secretary of state. We trust that happened.

But the Daily Show didn't single out North Carolina. It was among a slew of states including Idaho, Florida and New York. In fact, the fake correspondent said he was standing near a place in New York that was called, you guessed it, N---- Head Lake, N.Y. Seems Texans have a lot of company in not seeing the offense in such racial slurs - or being slow on acting to get rid of the names on public and private places.