One Last Thing...

A tale of two hos (Kottke)
Snoop Dogg recently explained the difference between the language used by old, white radio announcers and rappers:

It's a completely different scenario. [Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about hos that's in the 'hood that ain't doing shit, that's trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthafuckas say we in the same league as him.

What Mr. Dogg is arguing here is that it's ok to refer to actual hos as hos in the service of artistic expression but it is not ok to refer to college basketball players as such for the purpose of demeaning people. As we're currently engaged in another go-round on the issue of speech, political correctness, and its potential enforcement, it's not hard to imagine that someday an argument like Snoop Dogg's will be deployed in a court of law. I wonder if anyone will buy it?