F-Word vs. N-Word: What’s the Difference?

How is Perez Hilton using a gay slur any different from Kanye saying the N-word?

Most of you are furious we're actually picking on Fergie instead of Perez Hilton in the smackdown that happened Sunday night. Look, folks, Ferg's a grown girl. She's got every right to defend herself, but why bother trying to change the stubborn mind of a bitchy dude like P.H.? Ain't gonna happen. We know that, and the Black Eyed Peas shoulda known that, too. Then they wouldn't be getting sued!

So about Hilton slinging the F-word at will.i.am?

"Whenever these vulgar antigay slurs are used," Rashad Robinson, Senior Director of Media Programs of GLAAD, tells us, "it feeds a climate of hatred and intolerance that contributes to putting the gay and lesbian community in harm's way."

So basically: It's never OK to say.

If that's so, we gotta seriously wonder about this double standard: How many rappers, supercommercial dudes like Kanye West included, drop the N-word onstage without skipping a beat or getting blasted for it? Isn't this the same damn thing?

Yep.

We put in word with the NAACP for what its stance on the N-word is—if there's ever an OK way to say it, whether it's meant in jest or if a member of the black community is the one saying it. No word back from the org, but actions speak a helluva lot louder than words: Back in 2007, the NAACP threw a mock funeral for the death of the N-word, so we think we're pretty sure where it ironically stands.

So why don't we see press releases from the NAACP every time Lil Wayne or Nas drops the N-bomb in a song, but a gossip blogger shouts it at a club and GLAAD comes out with a new statement every five minutes? Is GLAAD just finding any self-serving excuse to make its presence known, regardless how insignificant the situation is? It really has become the PETA of political screamers.

For the record, we have been chastised by GLAAD for even joking about hot Hollywood actresses sometimes pushing their bisexuality cards to perhaps get some hot press. Like, god forbid any dame in this town would ever doing anything so disingenuous, right?

Unlike GLAAD, we're not entirely against the F-word in all scenarios. Isaiah Washington angrily directing it at T.R. Knight during an on-set fight and then saying it again at the Golden Globes just shows how much he disrespects his gay costar. But the word itself? Hell, the A.T., the most homo-friendly blolumn there could be, even has a category called Fagola Fad. And we have no plans to change it. I mean, that would be, like, so gay.