language taboos

John Ridley, who is black (you need to know that to get the gist of the story: sorry if anyone is offended), wrote a provocatively titled piece in Esquire, “ The Manifesto of Ascendancy for the Modern American Nigger,” extolling black high achievers.

I have no qualm about using the word nigger. It is a word. It is in the English lexicon, and no amount of political correctness, no amputation into “the n-word”—as if by the castration of a few letters we should then be able to conceptualize its meaning without feeling its sting—will remove it from reality.

So I say this: It’s time for ascended blacks to wish niggers good luck. Just as whites may be concerned with the good of all citizens but don’t travel their days worrying specifically about the well-being of hill billies from Appalachia, we need to send niggers on their way. We need to start extolling the most virtuous of ourselves. It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans�those who have sealed the Deal, who aren’t beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement.

The piece was linked on HuffPo, and the response of the commenters (many of whom were so offended by his use of the word “nigger” that they didn’t read his provocative piece) prompted Ridley to follow up:

s it possible that in 2006, generations after we as a people survived slavery, an abandoned reconstruction, Jim Crow and the tumult of the civil rights era some in our community would allow themselves to be cowed by six letters and two syllables?

Yes.

And this manifestation of timidity is formed at the nexus of a gross symbiotic relationship between the paternalistic left and the racist right.

The left wants to wield the righteous sword of politically correct censorship in a hamfisted attempt to protect what they perceive as the otherwise “weak” and “helpless” black man. They wish to neuter the word nigger so that it will not shatter blacks’ fragile nature. You do not see the word in print in mainstream media. And though entertainment companies make serious bank pimping “niggaz” to middle America, you do not hear the word associated with true discourse in the media.

Yet, how many media executives or newspaper publishers who made the decision to amputate nigger into “the N-word” are people of color themselves? Or is it merely “them” deciding what’s best for “us?”

Well, yes, I would say it is a case of “us” deciding for “you.” Check out what happened to Hitchens on Hardball recently when he was talking about wordplay and political speech:

Asked by Chris Matthews on his Hardball TV show why many liberals think that Republicans are dumb, I try to explain that it goes back to John Stuart Mill describing the Tories as ‘the stupid party’. I add that the Tories used ironically to borrow this description of themselves, as indeed they did the word ‘Tory’, which was originally an insult. Warming to my theme, I list the other slanders that have been reversed by their original targets - from ‘Impressionist’ to ’suffragette’.

I also mention a famous rude word for black people that begins with ‘N’ but has been annexed back by its victims. Suddenly, there is a break and the studio fills with grim-faced executives who tell me that I’m cut from the rest of the show. I say I want it in writing. From discussing a non-story to becoming a non-story of my own is a short step.

We need more provocative ideas like Ridley’s and fewer nannies deciding what we can and cannot discuss like adults seeking to understanding one another.