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Any discusion of the "n" word in mixed company, mingling ethnic groups, gets uncomfortable, maybe even dirty. It'll shake some folks up, maybe burn a few, but if we're lucky, like supernaturally blessed lucky, we might learn something to heal our disease. So, I've set aside the post I'd intended to write about Starbucks closing. Instead I'm picking up a topic that I've told other bloggers privately I won't discuss again until possibly next year, use of the "n" word.
I said wait until next year because you know some drama about the "n" word will blow up again. It's become a fixture in our lives. Toni Morrison's assertion in Playing in the Dark that the African-American presence, either by appearing fully and positively or only as troublesome allusion, permeates American Literature may also be applied to the fabric of this nation. The blood-stained thread weaves through each patch, a pleasing splash of color or embarrasing stain.
First, Laina, thank you for taking on this complex subject. Laina is a BlogHer contributing editor who wrote about America's most recent dust-up over the "n" word, the Whoopi Goldberg/Elisabeth Hasselbeck drama. She's done an exceptional job. I like her pithtiness and how she also drew into the post the Jesse Jackson/Obama mess, a topic that reminds us just how much race has been in our faces this election year. Laina also had the following observation that made me laugh.
Plus, why are white folks so eager to say the N-word in public? It's like y'all chomping at the bit. Good luck with that. (Laina's post)
My problem with the "why can't we white people also use the "n" word because black people say it all the time" justification and then someone like Elisabeth Hasselbeck crying on The View over what, oh what will she teach her children if black people keep calling each other "n****r" is that the argument is bullsh*t. It's like most justifications that come from people who don't want to address a difficult issue honestly; it oversimplifies the subject, "white washes" it so to speak, just to let folks who are too lazy to walk in someone else's shoes off the hook for taking high road.
Really, how dare Hasselbeck make it sound as though black people are at fault for more white people using the "n" word? I'll concede that young white people listening to rap music have been stricken stupid by hearing this word so often, but what does that have to do with what Hasselbeck teaches her children about treating people with respect?
I know I'm treading a slippery slope here and certainly risk being called "an angry black woman," but that's okay. I'll be in good company with Laina and Michelle Obama. We have a tendency in this country to chide people for expressing anger about subjects that any fool knows should make a person angry. When feminists, for instance, passionately speak about the inequality of women, what's the common adjective tossed their way? Hmm, she sure sounds bitter. You may also hear some further discussion about it being her time of the month, or raging hormones from menopause. When black women speak of racial injustice, then it's "they're angry" and also, "You know how emotional those people are. They just don't know how to be rational."
I'm not angry. I'm frustrated.
I'm not so much frustrated by the racist policies and practices that affect African-Americans everyday. I was born into that. It's something you don't get over, but you do learn to adjust. You develop coping mechanisms such as practicing love instead of endulging meltdowns, and you live your life hoping the world will become what it should be. If you're not totally beaten down by the time you bear children, then you embrace the wonders of your heritage, ignore the hateful, and teach your children to behave as people would in a better world.
I am not angry but I am frustrated by people behaving as though they don't understand how some black people may use the word "n****r" sometimes and yet be incensed by people of other races using it. Frankly, this pretense of incomprehension is another form of racist propaganda, this view that black people are so foreign to white people and hard to understand when it comes to the "n" word. Any
