John Legend challenges Piers Morgan over ‘N-word’ commentary

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Former CNN personality and current editor for the Daily Mail UK, Piers Morgan, decided to offer his perspective on race and racism via an op-ed piece that was published yesterday. In the piece, Morgan suggested that black Americans’ use of the “N-word” exacerbates the race issue and decried the term — while using violent imagery that evoked slavery.


“It’s such an inflammatory and offensive word that for any high-profile white person to publicly use it, without abbreviating to ‘N-word’, is rightly tantamount to professional suicide and personal opprobrium,” Morgan writes. “I don’t use it; would never use it. But it has become astonishingly ubiquitous in modern American society.”


“Better, surely, to have [the N-word] expunged completely,” says Morgan. “Eradicated, obliterated, tied to a literary post and whipped into such brutal submission that it never rears its vicious head again.

“As a white man, I have no right to demand that any black person gives up using the N-word. But as someone who believes passionately in civil rights, I just think it’s the right thing to do.”


Morgan’s commentary was swiftly condemned by black Twitter users, and R&B star John Legend offered some sarcastically pointed words of “praise” to Morgan for his piece.

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Upon seeing John Legend’s tweets, Morgan was quick to defend his position. He and Legend then engaged in a brief back-and-forth.

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