“Die, N-word, we don’t want to see you ‘round here no more.”
It was just last summer that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick made this statement during an NAACP sponsored “funeral” for the ‘N’ word.
But during his state-of-the-city speech Tuesday night, Kilpatrick brought the word back to life.
“In the past 30 days, I’ve been called a n—– more than any time in my entire life,” Kilpatrick said before a crowd of about 1,500 and on live television.
So much for that wake.
His racially charged tirade against the media and critics comes in the middle of a scandal in which his exchange of sexually explicit text message with a former top aide were made public.
I realize the word has seeped into practically every aspect of American culture, from literature to comedy skits and into the music world. Unlike Kilpatrick, most of these people never vowed to band the word from their lexicon. Even so, widespread use does not make it right.
While some people think using the word is offensive, others think it is simply a matter of free speech. I, for one, find it increasingly more difficult to respect a black man who uses the word (especially one who pledged not to use it) and then rebukes a person of another race for saying it.
The argument that the black community took the word from whites to somehow diminish its power is dumb. That argument only furthers the mentality that it’s okay for blacks to use the word.
I’m no stranger to the word. Being a minority, I’ve heard the word thrown around in my own Hispanic culture more often than I care to admit. And I’ll admit that there have been times when I’ve heard the word used and not thought twice about it.
But if we are going to continue to fight racism, we need to drop it already. No matter where we are in history, this word will always express a certain concept and idea. Sadly, we are stuck in a world where no matter how accomplished a black person is, he or she will always be a n—– to some people. It’s hard to kill that sort of ignorance and stupidity, but we are all guilty of being hypocrites if we accept that word in our life.
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Entries
March 14th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Well put, Marissa.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Um, I would say that the alleged hypocrisy is a nonstory. That the Associated Press thought it was a story is more a story. To begin with, the idea that we ban words is foolish, a repressive approach to improving anything, the kind of medicine that’s worse than the disease. That some clearly pretty witless AP journalist thinks it’s a story does not make it a story. (”The n-word has been used as an epithet to describe black people for more than a hundred years.” Gee, thanks for that! Was this a report for third graders?) Fact is Kilpatrick was not being hypocritical. Please. He wasn’t calling anyone a “nigger,” neither as an epithet nor a term of endearment. He wasn’t going back on the spirit of the “funeral” ceremony held earlier in Detroit at which he spoke against use of the word. This time he was using the word as a word, reporting the hurtfulness of the fact that he was being called it. How should he have better expressed that information and the feeling tied to it? The whole point was to convey the shocking and unacceptable-ness of being called that extremely loaded word in a loaded context. We can accept his talking about his pain in real terms, can we not? Are we all children? Are we all being forced now by the AP thought police not to report on a word that was used to defame us, to make us feel bad, its power being such that we dare not utter it aloud? Imagine the ridiculousness of a black mayor getting up in front of the nation and saying… “I have been hurt. I have been called the n-word.” As a culture, we could all then raise our hands and ask our AP language instructors if at the commercial break we could be excused to go “number one” or “tinkle-tinkle.” Good god.
March 16th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I agree that the buryingn of the word is pure coonery. however, we all know this mayor is using the race card, if that is what he wants to succumb to , let him have that. he’s a nigga, i probably would have done the same thing if i got caught. If he was out here in marbella, it probably wouldnt fly sorry nigz……