Terrence Howard: ‘N-word needs to be removed from the English language’

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Actor Terrence Howard stars alongside Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker in the upcoming historical drama, Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

The film is based on the real life White House butler, Eugene Allen, who served eight different U.S. presidents from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Throughout the film, Howard’s character [named Howard] uses the n-word jokingly, several times while discussing his friends and neighbors.

In an interview with theGrio, the Hustle & Flow actor talked about the use of the n-word during the civil rights movement, and how it’s casually used now.

“Now we just call it the n-word, when the term ni**a I heard more in my household than Terry [short for Terrence], that’s just the reality of it,” Howard said. “My father called his friends that, his friends called him that, therefore I called my friends that, and my friends called me that. And that’s how we communicate.”

“Now I think after seeing a movie like this and a number of films that have come out, we might begin to gain the consciousness and awaken to the fact that maybe it’s [the n-word] something that needs to be removed from the English language.”

Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter for more Entertainment news at @WitherspoonC