When TV's "Kramer" yelled a series of racial epithets at hecklers during a performance at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, he inadvertently ruined his career and sparked a national dialogue about race in America. The video circulated on TMZ.com instantly became a cable news bonanza and forced Michael Richards into dozens of apologies. It was a moment when art intersected life, and it has inspired many prominent black entertainers to disavow use of the N-word.
In the black community the word is commonly used and meant to invoke the camaraderie of living through a shared struggle. Honestly, like many of the public figures now denouncing it, using the word didn't bother me much before the rant. After hundreds of years of dealing with the massive socio-economic damage of slavery, having one ethnically exclusive word does not seem unreasonable.
However, comedian Paul Mooney, known for his racially inspired humor, said it best when he promised to wean himself off the word after expressing his disgust with its use as a weapon. Civil rights activists Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are using the incident to publicize efforts to convince public figures to stop saying it.
Following this outcry, the visceral hatred the word invokes is undeniable. While walking home to Mifflin Street one night, someone called to me and said "Hey nigger." Assuming it was someone I know trying to get a rise out of me, I slowly approached, growing more and more shocked that I didn't recognize the guy. When I found myself a few inches from his face, I asked who he was and walked away.
I have no doubt that the pervasive theme of race in popular entertainment convinced both him and Richards that this would be okay or at least comedically excusable. It's thrown around all too often in pop-rap and TV. So while I agree with Sharpton, Jackson and Mooney about the horrific elements of our national history this invokes, that doesn't make it right to censor its use in all art.
The gripe shouldn't be with street poets or rappers who use the word when depicting the struggle and internal conflicts that plague modern life in the slums. But when popular media caught on to the marketability of this foreign culture, a perversion of it inevitably rose. Forces representing the "Bling-bling" wing of hip-hop, willing to do anything to become the profitable image proliferated in suburban America, use the word to describe everyone they would slap or who fled during an imaginary dance club confrontation. The context of art is no longer a good excuse because it is impossible to define which art is legitimate.
I don't know whether Richards is a racist, but he has forced black America to have this conversation on new terms. I'd like to think there is a context when its use is valid — like in this column — when creating an artistic picture not inspired exclusively by lust or fame. But if we can't even remember "I before E except after C," how can we triangulate motivation before speaking? Wouldn't it be best to rid ourselves of its hateful heritage?
The question is whether it is better to bury a word or disarm it. The fact is that it is never going to disappear. So the concern in its usage is whether it draws an invisible line between black and white that holds us apart, and I don't think this is the case. Racial hostility is based on class, culture and ignorance — not a word. While refusing to use it is an honorable choice, it won't go far in helping America overcome its legacy of blood.
So I'm not going to criticize young people living in the inner cities who have found their own historical context. After all, language is a constant evolution, for example, how many people know that "gyp" is a slur meant to invoke alleged thieving nature of gypsies? I'm not worried about offending the ghosts of the past with a word so long as we don't summon those ghosts.
As a music artist I also face the dilemma of whether to speak in the language of those I mean to depict or project a more idealized image on them. There seems little choice but to conclude art isn't always politically correct or even right, nor should it be. Often art must find the boundary and purposefully step over it to make us question why we drew the line there in the first place, and what that line says about us as a people.
Bassey Etim ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and political science.
