“Societies create vocabularies, devising new terms when they are needed and retaining old ones when they serve a purpose. Dictionaries list words as obsolete or archaic, denoting that they are no longer used or heard. But one epithet survives, because people want it to. Your vulnerability to humiliation can be summed up in a single word. That word, of course, is “nigger”.
When a white person voices it, it becomes a knife with a whetted edge. No black person can hear it with equanimity or ignore it as “simply a word”. This word has the force to pierce, to wound, to penetrate, as no other has. There have, of course, been terms like “kike” and “spick” and “chink”. But these are less frequently heard today, and they lack the same emotional impact. Some nonethnic terms come closer , such as “slut” and “fag” and “cripple”. Yet “nigger” stands alone with its power to tear at one’s insides. It is revealing that whites have never created so wrenching an epithet for even the most benighted members of their own race.
Black people may use “nigger” among themselves, but with a tone and intention that is known and understood. Even so, if you are black, you know white society devised this word and keeps it available for its use. (Not officially, of course, or even in print; but you know it continues to be uttered behind closed doors.) Its persistence reminds you that you are still perceived as a degraded species of humanity, at a level to which whites can never descend.”
-Andrew Hacker, Two Nations, pp. 55
By now, surely you’ve heard about radio talker Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s latest on-air rant, wherein which she used the word “Nigger” 11 times inside of five minutes. The rant on her part took place as a result of an on-air and real time exchange between herself and one of her callers, an African American Woman who called for advice on how to handle her White husband’s friends fast and loose use of the word “Nigger” and related racial slurs toward Black people. Dr. Laura’s response was to note what I like to call the “Nigger Double Standard”-how Black rappers, comedians and ordinary layfolk, can and do make frequent and liberal use of the word “Nigger”, but as soon as someone White does it, it becomes a huge issue. The point being, they say, that if the word truly is bad and racist, it shouldn’t be used by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and, more importantly, African Americans are being blatantly hypocritical. Of course when her caller took issue with Dr. Laura’s use of the term, Dr. Laura’s response was “don’t NAACP me!”-a not so thinly veiled reference to the NAACP’s failed attempt to upbraid the Tea Party, which led to a public airing of an NAACP-sponsored event where then-US Dept of Agriculture apparatchik Shirley Sherrod is seen saying that she didn’t do all she could to assist a White farmer retain his land, and this comment eliciting applause from the Black crowd in attendance.
Dr. Laura has been properly vilified in the media, complete with a crocodile tear-laden “apology” on her part, but the damage has been done, and more importantly, her world-infamous acerbic ways have re-invigorated yet another round in the Great “Why can’t we (read: White people) say Nigger too!” American Debate-a question that I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought to-and have decided on what I think should be the appropriate African American response.
As Prof. Hacker says above, everyone in America knows exactly what the word Nigger means, who originated it, and what for. Moreover, as he rightly points out, it is interesting indeed that there is no “White” equivalent for such a term, or for that matter, no foreign one either. The word Nigger stands alone and remains the ultimate ethnic slur and racial putdown.
So it shouldn’t come as any surprise as to why African Americans, taken as a group, remain quite sensitive to the word, when uttered from White mouths. Regardless as to how often that same word is uttered or its many variations is repeated among the Black masses, the fact remains that it takes on a completely different meaning when in the mouths of White Americans. Why this is so should at this point really go without saying, but since even ostensibly intelligent people such as Dr. Laura still don’t seem to get it, here it go:
It is because the word is only a verbal manifestation of the potential power to wound, limit, or otherwise effect Black lives, when uttered by Whites-and that’s the whole point, Dr. Laura, something that you accused Black folk of attempting to seize, in fact-power. While many Whites innocently attempt to analyze what they see as a “double standard”, Black people see as an intellectually dishonest attempt to legitimate the use of a term that extends a very real sense of power over Black lives, that even the worst of Black styled anti-White epithets, like “cracker” and “honkey” and “Whitey” can never do. If we care about racism, it’s because of its ability to make real its power in the lives of its targets. No matter how many Whites claim “reverse discrimination” and the like, the fact remains that few if any Whites can make the case that Blacks hold their very lives in thrall the same way so many Whites can wrt Black folk. The very notion that all things are equal in this way, as presupposed by Whites like Dr. Laura, is more than just silly. It slaps the whole of American history in the face with a mighty pimphand, and proves yet again White America’s great capacity for being not just a nation of cowards, but also of amnesiacs.
Finally, I have to observe the following: despite her part-Italian background, Dr. Laura strongly identifies with the Jewish side of her family, and has gone on record early and often, proclaiming her Jewish ways.
Whether Jews rib each other by calling one another “kike”, “hymie”, “heeb”, etc., behind closed doors or not, I don’t know. But one thing I DO know, is that the Jews will not hesitate to step to you with the quickness if you say something about them they don’t much approve of, and last time I checked, Dr. Laura didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with how they do business.
Yet, she wishes to tell Black folks how they should conduct theirs-an issue I will address in the coming days.
Now adjourn your intellectually dishonest asses…
The Obsidian
