Peel out the watchword

What kind of world is it when these are the top headlines on PEOPLE.com?

Also, I just read in amNY, the free daily newspaper you get at train stations, subways, etc. that the New York City Council is looking to adopt a "symbolic" ban of using the N-word.

"I'm hoping this is the beginning of a move forward to a place where the use of the N-word is simply unacceptable," Councilman Leory Comrie (D-Queens) said after presenting a website called http://www.abolishtheword.com/.

Not that anyone cares, but to throw my 2 cents in: Just when exactly in present day society has it been acceptable to use that word? Not for nothing, but maybe Councilman Comrie should target the black communities to get them to stop throwing the word around because I don't know any white people who aren't Eminem, Paris Hilton or Michael Richards that use that word. Yet I was waiting for the subway last weekend & heard a group of young black men using that word like they were gonna get a dollar every time they said it. Maybe NY is more progressive than most places or the diverse world I grew up in gives me a reverse ignorance of sorts. While I'm not condoning the use of the word, isn't that ban somewhat contradicting that a little thing called the 1st Amendment? The N-word shouldn't be used because people make the conscious decision to stop using it because they find it morally wrong, NOT because a city council tells them they can't.