It doesn't require much effort to find out how to pronounce a word correctly — a quick internet search will do.

Take Aspergillus niger, for example, a common mold that was recently referenced in a first-year medical class at UTHealth Houston.

The pronunciation isn't a mystery. In American English, it's pronounced Nai-jer; in British English, Nai-juh. The word also appears in geography - the Niger River in West Africa is one of the continent's largest rivers.

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So it's deeply troubling that a UTHealth Houston professor, also a physician, chose to turn that scientific term into an excuse to use a racial slur.

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