I’ve Been Thinking Again
“He’s a nigger.”
Everybody in the world by this point has heard about Michael Richards’ blow up the other day. I’ve turned his name into a verb, adjective, and adverb by this point.
I called somebody a Michael Richard’s ass nigga the other day.
I wasn’t exactly outraged by the video clip. Perhaps I’ve just come to accept these things as part of society. Sure he was wrong, and sure he’s a bigot, and yes I believe he meant exactly what he said. Thing is, I don’t actually think he’s any different than any number of white people out there.
Or Black people.
Us Black people just don’t have a word that evokes the same type of historical symbolism as the dreaded n-word. If we had one, I’m sure we’d be using it too.
Mind you, none of that makes it okay. Michael Richards was wrong on all fronts. He wasn’t even funny. He seemed like a possessed jack-ass.
Well, of course, the Black community is responding to this incident through recharged efforts to stop everybody from using the n-word. I use the n-word. A lot actually. Not even intentionally. I think I’ve just been using it so long, for whatever reason, that it’s become second nature. I never use it around white people, which makes me believe that I could stop if I wanted to. Similar to cursing in front of one’s parents. I don’t curse in front of mom dukes.
Anyway, everybody’s favorite Johnny-come-lately civil rights group, the NAACP, has taken up the cause of trying to eradicate the usage of the n-word. And though I think that there are a million other problems more worth addressing, this time, I just might pay attention to their efforts because of one man.
Paul Mooney.
According to Allhiphop.com, Paul Mooney has taken to stopping his usage of the word.
Legendary African-American comedian Paul Mooney, who has written controversial material for comedians like Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle, is well known for his using the word in his own comedy routines.
Like Paul Wall and the late Richard Pryor, Mooney has vowed to never use the word again during his routine. “I’ve used it and abused it, and I never thought I’d say this,” Mooney said. “Richards is my Dr. Phil ��� he’s cured me.”
Anybody familiar with Paul Mooney knows how often he uses that word. I mean, one of his favorite lines was that he said the word 100 times when he woke up in the morning because it kept his teeth white.
So for Paul Mooney to decide that he will no longer use the word, similar to the path of Richard Pryor and other luminary comedians of the past, at least gives me pause.
Not exactly pause enough to stop using it, but it at least makes me think. I suppose I’m somewhat of a contradiction when it comes to the n-word. For one, I will never use it around white people…ever. It just seems stupid to me to do so. However, I still use it around Black people. And I know that the hip-hop community has co-opted it into a term of endearment and legions of n-words everywhere think nothing of it as we use it daily, but it is still problematic.
For instance, we hate the Confederate battle flag, which is a symbol of the old, racist, slave-holding South. Black folks get into a tizzy when they see that flag. Yet we use the other symbol, the n-word.
My solution has long just been to do the same thing that we did with the n-word. Make it ours. I’ve planned on creating a red, black, and green confederate battle flag for years. And Lil Jon and Andre 3000 have both rocked Black and White confederate flags in videos.
Then again, that doesn’t really make much of a change now does it? I’d like to say I’m torn here, but I’m really not. I like doing things that spark controversy and a red/black/green Confederate flag would do just that. But I also like inciting some sort of emotion in racist white people…
…and defacing that flag does just that. I can imagine me walking around in Alabama with my own t-shirt version of that flag. Hell, I might get beat down because of it.
Guess that would be what it feels like for a white man to call a Black man a nigger…because white rednecks take that flag seriously.
I have no idea if I’ll ever really stop using the n-word. I suppose at some point I’ll just get tired of it or perhaps I’ll see the “light”. Maybe not. It doesn’t offend me that much. And I’m around like 8 white people in my entire life right now. And none of them would call me that to my face so I don’t even get the opportunity to get riled up about it anymore like I used to when I was in high school in Alabama.
It’s often strange to me what causes us to get active in this nation as Black people. We need some sort of impetus to bring to the people so that we can get motivated about something. People use the n-word everyday, white people I mean, but the second a famous person says it, we are able to organize into some sort of driving force.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. What’s the good of being an organization if you only act when something bad happens? You can never really create change if your only reactive. It’s transparent. If you only show up after the fire but don’t do anything in the first place to prevent it, you lose credibility, which is usually where I stand with the NAACP and lots of the once prominent civil rights organizations. No more proactivity…all reactive.
All in all, this whole discussion about the n-word is interesting. One, everybody knows all of the problems and everybody knows the most easy and effective solution. But nobody knows if it will make a difference. If nobody, whites or Blacks, used the n-word, would anything really change? Does it even count as a step in the right direction? I suppose in some ways it does…then again, I’m skeptical as race will never go away and therefore racism will never go away.
I mean, we’ll all be different colors forever.
Perhaps without the n-word we wouldn’t have to be reminded of it verbally.
Unfortunately, we’ll always be able to still feel it…
Such is life.
November 29th, 2006 12:31
Panama, this was really a good entry. I never really thought about the reactiveness of our civil rights organizations. Very good point. I guess we have been pacified for so long that they tend to focus on keeping what we have ‘gained’ vs. continuing to move forward.
Food for though on that one, thanks!
November 29th, 2006 13:29
Paul Mooney not saying “nigger” is like Larry the Cable Guy not saying “Git’er Dun!”
the only issue i take with the Confederate flag analogy is that it never was created to demean the South. its always been a source of Southern pride. nigger was always intended to belittle black folk as less than white folk or anything else that walked on two or four legs.
even po’ white trash try to hold their heads high by sayin’, “i maybe poor and uneducated, but i ain’t a nigger!”
it really doesn’t matter what people call u…its what u choose to answer to that can define u.
Michael Richards got it right…the heckler is a nigger. cuz what ain’t bein’ said is that the heckler started some shit that he ain’t finish and got offended when he was called on it.
most of us know, that’s a bitch nigger move!
most of us never, knew what Richards was like outside of playin’ Kramer. most of us didn’t care either…
…why start now?
Seinfeld Season 7 DVD…in stores now!
November 29th, 2006 14:01
I wanted to reply earlier, but had to leave for a second after almost choking on my soup whille reading the paul mooney comment. (Also, for anyone who’s interested in this type of stuff, you should watch the clip of him on youtube, being interviewed about kkkramer. Its classic mooney)
ANYWAY, I really think the whole “n-word” issue is a non-issue, especially when there’s literally thousands of dookies and namonds and michaels and randys (sorry for the wire references for non-wire viewers. Non-wire viewers shouldnt be allowed to speak publicly anyway.) running around aimlessly in our cities and shit. It just seems like we spend too much of our time and resources and effort talking about shit like this (myself included)
Although I’ve joked and blogged about it, I could really care less about what some washed up e-list comedian spouts on stage, as long as i hafta vest up to buy ice cream at 10pm. He could be standing on my desk right now, pointing and screaming “champ, you’re a nigger and you have nigger parents” and all I’d do is call maintenance for a new desk
November 29th, 2006 14:39
@builtfromwax: The Confederate flag may not have originally been intended to demean Black people (as I think you meant to say) but in an indirect way it does. It’s a symbol of the Old South, the pre-Civil War South as has it has been adopted by many anti-Black groups. And as the rampant use of the word nigger teaches us, what something means today is sometimes as important, if not more, than what it means historically.
Growing up down South, many a redneck sports that flag (though I called it the Confederate flag, its really not, its the Dixie flag or Rebel flag but the confederate flag doesnt exactly look like that) as a symbol of how things used to be…namely when the nigras weren’t running free.
Sure, some people see it as a mark of Southern pride and heritage, but that Southern pride and heritage is largely tied into a history where Black people were much maligned. And they liked it that way. Basically, it’s a symbol of where Kramer’s comments wouldn’t have meant much of shit to anybody b/c they’re the norm…even today in some places.
And also, how can it be a real source of Southern pride if everybody in the South isn’t captured in the thoughts behind it?
@dyoung: I do think we spend too much time talking about this kind of shit. It always amazes me how it comes up when we have much bigger problems…I guess we kind of accept the other shit as the status quo and feel that we can do something about this…I guess…
@Suga&Spice: Glad I could be insightful even in the least.
November 29th, 2006 16:53
Before I even start to comment on the entry: WHY is dyoung always bloggin or commenting about eating or choking on his soup????? I’mma have to talk to him about this, offline.
Does your mama (the one in Detroit) know you say the N word?
I too use the n word all the time, usually around my friends, but not even all my friends, just certain ones. I always turn it off at work, and when I’m around white folks. I could technically eliminate it from my vocab, but honestly I can’t think of another word to express the same sentiment in which I use it (which is not the same sentiment that white people use(d) it). When I say it, it isn’t in the same context all the time either, so there’s no blanket replacement word (ninja helps….eh but then that starts to sound ridiculous, and honestly its damn near the same thing anyway, so we’re back at square one). I could come up with a list of synonyms for whatever contexts I’d use it in….but it still doesn’t feel the same. lol. Why do I feel like this is the only word in my vocabularly that has this problem?
November 29th, 2006 20:53
Eh.
Paul Mooney wants to retire “nigger” from his repertoire now, huh? After he’s made his career and fortune off of it’s use? How black of him.
November 30th, 2006 00:58
“…and defacing that flag does just that. I can imagine me walking around in Alabama with my own t-shirt version of that flag. Hell, I might get beat down because of it.
Guess that would be what it feels like for a white man to call a Black man a nigger…because white rednecks take that flag seriously.”
that’s what i disagree with…its not the same thing. its one thing to take something valued and demean it. its totally different when something was intended to demean and continues to do so hundreds of years later.
although i do agree u’d get that ass beat caught in the wrong part of Dixie with a defaced version of their beloved flag! u’d definitely make ‘em angry, but u don’t dehumanize them by doing.
regardless of what it represents to black folks, white folks LOVE the damn flag! defacing it is like tearing up a picture of the Pope or your grandma.
but nobody loves a nigger…not even black people.
whitey, redneck, PWT or cracker just doesn’t have the same impact on white folks as nigger does on black folks. hell, Matt Lauer said “cracker” on the Today show when he interviewed the heckler for his response.
hmmm…wonder how that got pass the network censors, but we can’t see Janet Jackson’s pierced nipple?
November 30th, 2006 07:06
Three things to say here:
1) The NAACP is a facade. A shell of what it could be. Reactive and not proactive at all. Plus, they still call themselves “Colored”…. they need to just sit the fukks down.
2) To me, the confederate flag is like the union jack… just a part of history. Prejudice folks would still be prejudiced without the flag. If racists adopted jolly ranchers as their candy of choice, I’d still get me a nickel cherry at the drug store. Symbols are only as powerful and the power we allow them to have over us.
3) I’ve said it before, but nigga is like my mom-bitch hypothesis. When a teenager gets mad at his mom and calls her a bitch, no big deal. But if someone else calls his mom a bitch, he’ll bust that ass. Same with Black folks and nigga… we can use it because it’s OUR black people. Other folks can’t without arising ire.
And that’s my two cents, my nigga.
November 30th, 2006 11:40
I dont know why we are so intent on playing this gotcha game with white folks. We know that a good many of them are racist and dont care for blacks. Shit is the same as it was back to eternity. I heard a fellow on the Michael Eric Dyson radio show call in and say that ‘blacks who dont react to this Michael Richards incident are sellouts and cowards.’ Its just that type of reactionary attitude that perplexes me. A comic using language to degrade blacks is and should be so far down the list of concerns to our community that it barely should have made the last segment on the late night evening news. I mean what would happen if black people completely stopped reacting to the word nigger when uttered by a non black. I think that would have a greater effect than this empty attempt to erradicate the word altogether. This whole situation and the fallout is very disappointing.
November 30th, 2006 13:23
I agree with Bruthacode’s first 2 statements, (not the third cuz I can’t STAND the “n” word, but that’s just me). And Homiewood’s statements were on-point as well.
Only thing I can add is that pretty much all this “Kramer incident” did for me is remind me that some “others” are still sooo clueless. As if the racist tirade wasn’t enough, you top it with apologies in interviews with the so-called “representatives” of the Black community. Gimme a break. *Newsflash any caucasions within the sound of my voice (keyboard, lol)* If ever you find yourself on the outs with Black folks, please don’t continue to INSULT them by running to the same old tired “I-find-racism-for-a-living” crew ala JJ and AlSharp. Kay? Kay… Geez…
Later Panama.
T