What’s in a Word?

There are many truths in life that people don’t want to see or hear and least of all believe. Usually when faced with things like that we make excuses, erect straw-man arguments, resort to ad hominems, or enter flat-out denial.

There’s been a minor shit-storm erected around the blogiverse lately on account of a post over at Gut Rumbles that uses the word “nigger” nearly a dozen times. A lot of folks that a read often and respect have come out of the woodwork to denounce the post, the use of the now forbidden word, and generally cast Rob as the world’s largest bigot.

I read the post, as we all should, and you know what I realized? I agree with it in parts, but the delivery bothers me and the delivery only bothers me because I feel like Rob has made some important points that the more “well-trained” of us are going to hide from because it breaks the imposed decorum and raises arguments that have been disallowed for years.

You see, racists like Jesse Jackson have been training us white kids for years that one shouldn’t disparage a group of minorities, as that would be racist. We’re also not allowed to break races into subgroups. Or even identify the portion of a race which falls into a general population subgroup. In fact, to be safe, a lot of &#091white&#093 people have a subtle, latent fear of saying anything negative about a minority for fear of being labeled a bigot or racist. Same goes for guys saying things about women.

One of my favorite comedians, Chris Rock, has said something that I’ve been saying for years…

We’ve got a lot of racism going on in the world right now. Who’s more racist, black people or white people? Black people! You know why? Because we hate black people too!

Everything white people don’t like about black people, black people really don’t like about black people. There’s some shit going on with black people right now. There’s like a civil war going on with black people… and there’s two sides… there’s “Black People” and there’s “Niggers.”

Niggers have got to go.

Every time black people wanna have a good time, ignorant-ass niggers fuck it up.

You see, it’s all about context. A certain ex-girlfriend’s parents were wont to say things about “niggers” and you know what? They were nasty racial slurs. I didn’t care for them very much at all. They were embarrassing to hear, and shameful to be in the presence of. That doesn’t mean, however, that every time the word is used, it’s a racial slur.

Let’s look at the word “redneck” for a moment. Is that a racial slur? No. Sure, sure… I understand… I know that there’s a certain history to the “n-word” that makes people uncomfortable, and there’s a certain connotation to it that’s still wearing off after years of prejudice and racism, but an intelligent person can easily discern when a statement is inherently racist and when it is, in fact, only referring to a certain type or group of person. It’s all about context.

Now when you first read that the above post made extensive use of the “n-word” you probably had an initial prejudice against it because of the assumptions you made about how the word was used. I’ve already written the word five times, just for the record… does that make me any more of a rotten, horrible, no-good, son of a bitch than I was 20 minutes ago when I started writing this post? Nope. Sure doesn’t.

The problem is that the message gets lost in the delivery — some people can’t see the forest for the trees. They don’t care about context because all they can see are these big, ugly, n-words staring out of the page at them. They’re listening to that little bit of their conscience that’s been trained by years of politically-correct bullshit to become absorbed with the word and not the meaning. After all, it’s not the MEANING of the word to which most people object, it’s the word itself… which raises an interesting question: can a word be inherently wrong? Think about “profane” words like “fuck,” “shit,” “ass,” or “bitch.” Are those “bad” words? In all contexts? If so, why?

Those deeper issues of philosophy are not quite my point. My point is that if you read Rob’s article and replace the word “nigger” with the word “thug” does it change the meaning? Not really. Would that have changed some people’s reactions to it? Absolutely.

This, to me, is a problem. If you’re somebody who’s going to crucify the man for using the word “nigger,” but would be ok with the post as-is if that word were replaced with an equivalent, what message are you sending? Well, for starters, it makes clear that your concern is not one of bigotry — except maybe your own bigotry of language. It also means that you really don’t care what the article says or means — you’re not taking issue with it’s content, just it’s decoration. You have, essentially, reduced yourself to a nannying, protectionist, PC-monger.

Some people would be Ok with that, I think. There are people who see nothing wrong with eliminating a word from our vocabulary just because it offends some &#091ignorant&#093 people. My issue is not with them. They’re morons, but at least they’re consistent.

Some of the folks jumping on the “Rob’s a Racist” bandwagon are in the trackback links to Wizbang’s post on the matter. Now before I get jumped on, I have to agree that there seemed to be parts of the post, specifically in the latter half, that were expressly aimed at the black community at large. In situations like these, I tend to assume that the individual was generalizing and that the rules that apply to generalization should apply here. Even still, for Rob’s post to go from “rant” status to “social commentary” there needs to be a lot more substantiation of his claims, and the painting needs to be done with not so wide a brush.

Rob’s not a saint in the matter, but I think we need to allow ourselves to get to a point where we can read highly objectionable content, discuss it’s strong and weak points intelligently, and then act accordingly. Right now, there’s been very little discussion (that I’ve read) about the strong or weak points of the post. Only that a few racist comments negate the entirety of the post, which is really absurd. I also tend to think that folks need to be a bit more careful tossing around a term like “bigot” or “racist.” Were there areas of the post that were racist? Yep. Does that make Rob a racist? Not any more so than causing one accident makes you a bad driver.

I’m not going to be the one to discuss the pros and cons of Rob’s post — I tend to defer to Chris Rock on matters of race. All I wanted to was point out is that some of you should be a little more careful: your over-sensitivity is showing.

With that, we close with more Chris Rock:

You know the worst thing about niggers? Niggers always want some credit for some shit they’re supposed to do — for some shit they’re just supposed to do. A nigger will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A nigger will say some shit like “I take care of my kids!”

You’re supposed to you dumb motherfucker! What are you talkin’ about? What are you talkin’ about? What kind of ignorant shit is that?

“I ain’t never been to jail!”

Whatchu want — A cookie!? You’re not supposed to go to jail you low-expectation-having motherfucker!

&#091Well shit that was a long post, wasn’t it?&#093


UPDATE: If you want to see a mess of absurdity, check the comments on this post. They’re the worst kind of absurdity, too… the kind that looks reasonable and correct on first glance. More on that tomorrow, maybe.