touch a raw nerve

オバマ大統領がポッドキャストの中の発言でいわゆる"N-word"を使ったということがニュースになっています。


WASHINGTON — It was a single word, just six letters long, but one that has not been spoken by an American president in public for generations.

President Obama invoked the word “nigger” in a podcast interview released on Monday to drive home his point that slavery still “casts a long shadow” on American life. But in the process, he touched a raw nerve in a country struggling to confront racism and hatred in the days after nine black parishioners were killed during Bible study in a South Carolina church.

“We’re not cured of it,” Mr. Obama said of racism during an interview for a “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast. “And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.”
(Michael D. Shear. Making a Point, Obama Invokes a Painful Slur. New York Times. June 22, 2015.)


N-wordは黒人差別を象徴するものとして一般には忌避されるべきものですが、そこを敢えて使ったという大統領の主張は受け止められ方が微妙なところです。

言葉というものは受け取る人の立場によって受け止め方が様々だからです。

"touch a raw nerve"という表現における"a raw nerve"は、触れられたくない点、痛いところ、気に障る事柄、という意味です。それに触れることは反発や反感、怒りを買います。


If something that you say touches a nerve or touches a raw nerve, it upsets someone because you have mentioned a subject that they feel strongly about or are very sensitive about. You can also say that it strikes or hits a nerve or a raw nerve.
(Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms)


動詞は"touch"の他に、"hit"、"strike"なども使われます。