Wednesday, June 26, 2002
‘Nigger’ - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Last semester I had to do a paper on socialism in Canada for a Political Science class. One of the books I had borrowed from the library was Pierre Vallieres’ book White Niggers of America. It was a tome on the separatist movement in Quebec. Much of that movement’s beginnings, it seems, was inspired and rooted in the socialist mindset. After I used the book I dutifully returned it to the library at Langara College, and did so about a week before it was due. I guess it was premonition or something, that I was compelled to check the computer to see if they had correctly checked in my books. Alas, of about three books, the Vallieres book remained on my record. I let it go for another day or so, just in case there was a backlog at the library. It remained on my file and I decided to investigate talking to a library clerk. If not, I’d be libel for what are naturally exorbitant library fees. I went up to the clerk and asked what I could do to clear it up. I gave her my card and she asked what book I was claiming to have returned. I mumbled, “Well, it’s called ‘White... ahem...’” unable to finish the title and that word. That word -- ‘nigger’.
I consider myself a pretty liberal people. I call ladies ‘doll’, and like any good person I know how to swear. However, that episode at the library desk, unable to say that word made me realise that I was uncomfortable saying a word that means more than just a slur inflicted on a certain group of people.
Randall Kennedy, a law professor at Harvard, recently wrote a book called Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. It’s become a best-seller and has been the focal point of examination of social mores and I suppose linguistics. I haven’t myself read the book, but I have read some of Kennedy’s other writing. His thesis is that although it is a “hurtful racial slur meant to stigmatise African Americans,” it is a part of history that one must remember. Kennedy believes that “African American innovators” -- which means black musical rappers and other hip hop stylists -- should be praised for “taming, civilising, and transmuting ‘the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language.’” I guess when some blacks say “Whassup my nigger?” in music videos or in social circumstance, they’re sanitising that word.
Langston Hughes wrote in 1940 that “the word nigger to coloured people is like a red rag to a bull. Used rightly or wrongly, ironically or seriously, of necessity for the sake of realism, or impishly for the sake of comedy, it doesn’t matter. . . it sums up for us who are coloured all the bitter years of insult and struggle.” However, Kennedy argues that though the word can wound, it is imperative “to permit present and future readers to see for themselves directly the full gamut of American cultural productions, the ugly as well as the beautiful, those that mirror the majestic features of American democracy and those that mirror America’s most depressing failings.” To paraphrase Churchill, if we forget our collective past, we’ll surely have no future. To make the word ‘nigger’ taboo, may be more politically correct. However, the pain remains. If we choose to ignore this word’s existence we will definitely forget the bigotry and reprehensible acts such as lynchings and other violence. If we forget those, surely we’ll be closer to repeating such sins down the line.
However, unlike Kennedy, “African American innovators” should not be praised for using the word incessantly in their works. Sure, they’re proliferating its use on MTV of BET, and reducing some of the sting; but it’s allowing others to use it without realising the meaning of it. They themselves, these artists, are breeding an ignorant lot that knows not of the history embodied in that combination of six letters.
The word “nigger” is from the word “neger” which was derived from the Spanish word for black, “negro”. Where it became a slur, is unknown. But by the 19th century says Kennedy, the word had become a familiar insult. Hosea Easton in The Condition of the Coloured People of the United States; and the Prejudice Exercised Towards Them, wrote that the term is “an opprobrious term, employed to impose contempt upon [blacks] as an inferior race... The term itself would be perfectly harmless were it used only to distinguish one class from another but it is not used with that intent... it flows from the fountain of purpose to injure. Easton said that back in 1837.
Now Kennedy, the good professor from Harvard says that since black rappers have used it, it should be all good then. Not only are black rappers using the term incessantly in their music, but so are whites. ‘Wigger’ is an insulting term used towards whites who act as though they were black. Therein you see the use of that dreaded word, albeit in a reconfigured form. In a way, blacks themselves who use the word ‘nigger’ are allowing for the rest of us (meaning non-blacks) to use the word ourselves. Surely, they don’t think whites would begin asserting the term in a sentence, but what these “innovators” (as Kennedy calls them) are doing is merely sanitising a word that should not be. This is a word that is despicable.
‘Nigger’ is far more hurtful than ‘kraut’, ‘kike’, ‘spic’, or ‘chink’. ‘Nigger’ evokes more hurtful tones than any other word, and whilst Kennedy can applaud the “renovation” the “linguistic landmark” is going through, more than ever we must know the pain it symbolises and the history it has behind it. This breeding of ignorance is much like the journalistic actions of some, who 30 years after the Watergate break-in that brought down Nixon, who tack the suffix ‘-gate’ to every scandal that hits a politician. Not only is the practice a tad silly (not to mention wrong, as Watergate is the hotel which the operatives involved broke into) it belittles the history that surrounds President Nixon and the politics of that era. And when that school board in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia believes banning To Kill A Mockingbird is correct, there should be further examination again. A greater education, it seems, is necessary for us all.
The work Professor Kennedy has done is admirable. It isn’t yet kosher to transmit ‘nigger’ in the place of ‘black’ or ‘African American’, and it shouldn’t no matter what Kennedy says. He does however with his book, reflect the restlessness of a society that wants to understand who we all are, irrespective of skin pigmentation.
Andy Rooney says what Kennedy has done is attempting to rid us of a problem by holding “it up to a bright light and look[ing] at all sides of it.” Sure there will always be racist people amongst us, but with great debates like the one stoked by Kennedy, it is slowly and surely allowing us to discuss such fiercely contentious subjects in the open. For now, at least, we can, and must, maturely debate the miracle of such mere words.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .