The Power of the N-Word
with John McWhorter and Jonathan Rieder
I’ve invoked the distinction between “referencing” and “using” the N-word in this space before. “Use” denotes directing the word at a person in an attempt to insult or demean her. “Reference” denotes quoting or citing the word for the purpose of discussing it or a text that contains it. In this excerpt from this week’s episode, Barnard and Columbia sociologist Jonathan Rieder describes an incident in which the word led to the cancelation of his class, “Culture in America.” It should be obvious from his account that Jon was referencing the word, not using it. Moreover, according to Jon, most of his students seemed to understand exactly what he was doing, and most of them seemed to have no problem with it. But it only took the complaints of a few unreasonably upset students for the university administration to take Jon’s class away from him.
What happened to Jon is not about the power of the N-word, though it is about power. Despite its unique status in American life and history, “nigger” is just a word. It’s meaningless without context. Treating it, whenever it comes out of the mouth of a white person, as an assault on the humanity of any black person who happens to hear it gives institutional authorities license to inflict penalties on the speaker that are all out of proportion with the so-called offense. It allows those authorities to hold up the penalties as evidence that their university fosters a “welcoming” and “safe” environment, where no one will ever have to encounter any ideas that challenge their beliefs about sensitive topics.
But “welcoming” and “safe” for whom? A professor who is punished in the way Jon has been punished will certainly think twice next time he teaches that course, if he’s ever allowed to teach it again. He may start to watch his mouth, taking care not to present ideas that may result in harsher penalties. Students who may well want to have these challenging discussions may never get the opportunity, and they may not even realize that they’re being deprived of it. Such an environment is indeed quite safe, at least for the university administrators in question. Never mind that it leaves the institution, its faculty, and the students unable to engage in the honest and probing intellectual exchanges that define the very mission of the university.
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JONATHAN RIEDER: My course was canceled, “Culture in America,” after a brouhaha over an inadvertent quoting of the word “nigga'” ...
JOHN MCWHORTER: Jon, I have to interrupt you briefly. Glenn, you realize that the word he just used quite unjustifiably is going to be considered the most interesting thing about this entire goddamn conversation. What is our policy on that here? Because you know we're gonna hear about that.
GLENN LOURY: Within context and without any invidious intent, if the word is appropriate to the communication that's trying to be engaged in—and it was in that case, because the word had quotation marks around it when he spoke it. He was referring to the word. He wasn't using the word, if you see what I mean.
JOHN MCWHORTER: And I stand by that, too
It can't be that he cannot refer to a word because he's white.
JOHN MCWHORTER: And I heartily agree.
That's just nuts. It's nuts.
JOHN MCWHORTER: It's insane. And we are not gonna pretend that that isn't true. So I just want it to be clear, given the response. So continue, Jon.
What are the stakes when a grizzled old white guy like you—excuse me—but who has deep insight into the kind of socio-cultural matrix that you're trying to get students to be aware of runs afoul of the sensibility of the nineteen-year-olds who have feelings about the way that you deal with with these issues?
JOHN MCWHORTER: And the nineteen-year-olds are supported by people much older than them who are set to support them in the way they handle their feelings.
It's not a counseling session. The enterprise is not therapeutic.
JONATHAN RIEDER: After I made the quote, the first student who spoke, it was an African American who said, “Yes, I get it. Eminem gets to redefine the identity that matters as those who've struggled, because he turns on another black interlocutor and says his name is Clarence. His parents have a real good marriage and he went to a private school. He wins over the African American audience.”
JOHN MCWHORTER: Oh, this was in 8 Mile.
JONATHAN RIEDER: In 8 Mile, yeah. So that's the scene I'm quoting to make the point about the fluidity of identities and how you can start with a default identity that you're black or you're white and then discover the humanity. So the first African American had no trouble. The second person was an Afro-Latina who said, “That's how it was in my Washington Heights high school. There were three whites left in the school, and we thought they were from Mars. We got to know them and realized they were like us.”
And the third student said, “Professor, that's racist.” And so I said to the person, “I really admire you challenging me. That is what free speech and academic liberal arts education should be about. Anybody who wants to continue the talk, come meet with me.” So three students stayed afterwards and I said, “I can continue this as long as you want, I care about this so much.”
They went immediately to the chair of my department. The chair said, “You have a right to feel safe in the classroom. You should go to the provost.” So you've got three students in a lecture class of 40 who've got this illiberal sentiment—or maybe one felt actually wounded, I don't think the other two did—but that couldn't have gotten through the gauntlet of organizational life if someone had sat down, the adults, and said, “I understand these are difficult issues. I know Professor Rieder. He has cared about race and racism his whole life. You should go talk to him.”
And so I said later to the chair, “Did you ever think to tell the students, ‘Why don't you come talk to Rieder’?” She said, “I wouldn't do that. I told them to go to the grievance people because they have a right to feel safe.”
JOHN MCWHORTER: This definition of “safe” is always interesting, because nobody would've used it that way, even I think as recently as 15 years ago. And the idea is that you've suffered this kind of trauma and so there's this evolving definition of trauma. And it's not illogical or immoral or silly in itself to extend the definition of trauma. There're things that one is expected to think of as trauma today that back in the day you were expected to just get over. So for example, date rape. I don't think that it's wrong that we have come to define that as trauma, rather than a woman saying, “I was out with this guy who was all hands.” That's progress.
But the question is whether it's progress to say that it's trauma for the N-word to be referred to by a white man in a classroom. And I think that we're being strong-armed into pretending to think that that makes sense by this cadre of people, where the power that they have is that if you call them on the triviality and theatricality of this, you're called a dirty name in wide open spaces, and if possible, your courses are taken away from you. You might even lose your job. Most people aren't up for that.
But this really needs to stop. I mean, safety is one thing. Morality and manners change. But here I frankly think that you were being bullied by people in the name of a spiky and fragile ideology, and what allowed that to happen to you mostly was spectators cowering in fear, and that is not the way things are supposed to be.
JONATHAN RIEDER: I don't make an analogy between the threats of political correctness and social justice warriors and white supremacists on the right. But ...
But?!
JONATHAN RIEDER: Here's the parallel. We discovered how fragile guardrails of democracy are because we assume civic culture, American exceptionalism leads to progressive historiography, we'll have a democracy. And then it turns out Trump says, “Well, let's try this!” And then it turns out the guardrails of democracy are tissue paper and not concrete. The same is true of the guardrails of liberal arts education. We see how quickly under this new ideology colleges and universities concerned with branding, their fear of being told you're not good on diversity issues, can lead to the unraveling of important values of free speech, and I think it really hurts what real diversity is.
After many years teaching design studios, I had a student in a first year 3d studio who attacked “the system” ( and me) because I used the word “excavate“ in a program statement. She actually believed it was put there to speak down to her since she didn’t know the meaning ( or own a dictionary) Now I realized that the relationship between professor and student was broken and replaced by a weird commercial agreement..Too many low IQ entitled students with high self esteem feed this anger and disrespect !
There is no right to feel safe. None. That is the biggest fallacy, and the foundation, of the entire "woke" movement. Just because something is desirable does not make it a right.
You have a right to pursue safety, just like you have a right to pursue happiness. But you have no right to a guaranteed outcome, let alone a "feeling".
If I'm a professor, I'd play the same game. As soon as the student "challenged" me, I would sit down, curl up and whine "You are making me feel unsafe, and I am going to report you! You do not have the right to make me feel unsafe!"
And ask the weasel of an administrator: "Is the right of which you speak a natural right or a civil right?"
Universities need to add two words to their vocabulary, and use them frequently: "Grow up!"