While Durham Mayor Leo Williams is running for re -election, he catches heat for a candid style of communication and recent remarks that some find offensive.
In a video posted on Facebook about his meeting at the Rookie Sports Bar on July 3, Williams answered questions about how he handles crime and violence, city youth and other urgent problems.
For some people, one moment stood out: Williams’ response to a remark about violence with a gun, during which he calls young people carrying a firearm in Durham “YNS”, for “young” [racial epithet]S “
The term rooted in Afro -American folk English has gained adhesion to social media platforms like Tiktok. Once reserved for young black people who participate in violent or destructive behavior, one can now be seen online, describing any young black person.
Critics say it enhances stereotypes, repeats a racial stick and unfairly denotes young people in ways that contribute to stigma.
“Like someone who boasts that he is a former teacher, you know the power of words,” Durham Paul Scott’s activist replied to the mayor in a video on Facebook. “You know that people would lead you to call young black men who break up in YNS cars, people will accept it and run with it. Durham is already fighting enough.”
Williams, the owner of a restaurant and a former Durham public school teacher, used phrases with jargon and catch during his first term as mayor, including his slogan, Durham is a drug. He has often spoken directly to critics among the audience of the municipal council meetings.
The mayor’s office came days before Williams applied to apply for a second term, and he said he would not apologize for his remarks.
“I was answering an audience in the context we were talking about,” he said.
What did Williams say?
The nearby 43-minute video of the mayoralty shows that Williams dressed in a baseball cap and jeans casually, speaking clearly while presenting and sharing his upbringing.
The controversial note appeared during a discussion about Shotspotter, the rifle detection program that the city has recently ended.
Williams noted that the regulation of weapons falls under a federal and state jurisdiction, not in the city. He said Durham’s challenge was not the responsible owner of weapons, but those who carry an illegal firearm.
“We are dealing with some YNS here, just do their own thing, stealing [guns] Outside the cars, they don’t know how to communicate, “he said.
Young people are just fighting, but now they are reaching for weapons, he said. “There is no value to life, we deal with it. And they are 12 years old.”
“They have a mother who is only about 12 years older than them. They live in public housing where public housing has stimulated poverty. This will not allow you to have households with two parents and this is the fault of the federal government. I take a problem with it.”
As of July 12, 92 people were shot dead in Durham this year, 15 of them fatally, according to the Durham Police Department.
Twenty -seven of this year’s victims of shooting were black men of 25 to 34 years. The data does not show the age range of shooters.
“I will not apologize”
In a phone interview with News & Observer Williams, he wanted to give clarity and context for using the term.
He said he had chosen to hold the City Hall at Rookie’s to show only because he is the mayor does not mean he is over meeting people where they like to hang.
He also said that there were present using a similar language relative to the “YN” term and that it was not fair to criticize the people who “actually gained the courage to go out and actually talk to their mayor, someone they have never dealt with.”
“That’s how people said,” he said. “I’m talking about those young on the street, who are also killed.”
It was a pity that “the context was not fully understood based on a clip,” he said.
“I’m not going back to the context of this conversation and I will not apologize,” Williams said. “My reference is that these young on the street is killing, something must be done. I wish people focus on this, not two letters that came out of my mouth.”
Last month, Williams launched Bull City Fund for the future with the united path of the bigger triangle and the Triangle Community Foundation to support groups that serve young people.
“I’m not going to change,” he said. “When I came out with Durham is a doping, it was too radical for the older conservative crowd.
“Code-transformation”
While Williams said it was not a switching code during the town hall, practice is often related to black politicians and public figures.
Linguists determine the code switching as a displacement between languages, dialects or speech models depending on the setting. In particular, for Black Americans, it has become a necessary skill to navigate in the spaces dominated by the white majority.
“One of the things that Afro -Americans learn very early is something like it sounds,” says Walt Wolfram, a linguist and professor at the NC State University, who has been studying American ethnic dialects for over 60 years. “While the code switching is formed by oppression, it turned out to be a very powerful rhetorical instrument and advantage.”
Wolfram said that black children between second and sixth grades are learning to encode a switch while oriented at school, teachers and other expectations.
“My feeling is that mostly a black audience in Durham would be comfortable to use these terms to show a kind of solidarity with each other,” he said.
Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African -American research at Duke University, said the code switch was “a way to display connection or authenticity”.
“At the same time, many of these same people would probably use a much more renowned and problematic term to describe the same young men, but we would not keep them at the same level of accountability,” he said.
Neil recalled when Barack Obama was running for president in 2007 and was described as “very articulated, as a badge of honor.”
“For white voters, black people are always expected to come out as brushed or articulated,” Neal said. “But many young selected employees use their ability to encode the switching of the way they use social media, this is really important to reach part of the electorate that will not usually consume political information by reading a newspaper or even watching news shows.”
Words forming perception
In an Anjanée Bell phone call, one of three Williams opponents announced for the mayor, “Words matter.”
“Words are not just words; all words carry a weight,” she said. “They shape perception, they invite action and either enhance dignity or deny it.”
Bell said a language that “stereotypes or summarizes people can strengthen those who are not engaged in justice when we work to be better.”
“We can’t afford to nourish harmful stories or negative images,” she said.
Its frame of the campaign, Durham is hope, refers to its priorities for the city: housing and healing, opportunities and property, people’s safety and people’s trust and the environment and education. She did not say that her abbreviation was in response to Williams’ slogan “Durham Is Dope”.
“I prayed for the acting,” she said. “And he will have to be responsible and offer whatever he decides to offer to those he has harmed as a result of his choice words.”
The main elections for Durham voters are October 7, and the election day is November 4th.
NC Reality Check is a series of N&M that holds those of power and shiny light on public problems that affect the triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? E -mail realityCheck@newsobserver.com