Admittedly the term, heretofore referred to, if at all, as the ‘it’ word, is freighted by a long history of narrow, derogatory usage, in certain circles, leaving little room for ambiguity or contextual nuance, to the effect of being proscribed in polite society, of itself taken to be offensive regardless of context. Nonetheless, in other circles, especially in the vernacular of a certain minority, it enjoys colloquial utility enhanced by a broad range of situational nuance, to such an extent that it is one of the most commonly spoken words, after ‘fuck’, in the American language. Ironically, the term most emblematic in White usage of debasement has come in Black usage to symbolize the essence of hominess, an integral element of soul food. At the same time, it is indicative of the seemingly unbridgeable divide between the races, while the entitlement to its usage or the proscription thereof serves to illustrate and to solidify those boundaries.
Those supportive of trans-rights maintain that identity is first a subjective reality that society is obliged to recognize, as opposed to those who cling to the quaint notion of biological reality. Similarly one might maintain a claim to personal freedom of racial identity, whether a binary, either or choice, or a right to racial indeterminacy—that one may choose to maintain a fragmented identity, expressing behavioral characteristics beyond those defined by strictly segregated stereotypes corresponding to those assigned at birth.
While the argument can be indulged that sex, as defined in terms of DNA is an immutable fact, irrespective of one’s self-identification, hormonal manipulations, or pluming adjustments, the same may not be categorically said of one’s ‘race’ as the term is commonly understood. Some would argue that race is but a social construct while others—some of the same as would see sex defined by DNA—argue that race is first genetically defined, is real beyond social perception. Ironically, it is from the former that come the loudest insistence of racial solidity, while the latter emphasize the fluidity of racial boundaries, speaking of variations within breeding populations as contrasting to those between isolated populations and the rapid deterioration of distinctions when those barriers are removed.
While the physical nature of race enjoys a degree of consensual clarity among scientists engaged more directly in the biological underpinnings of that which is addressed within the citadels of the social sciences, proscriptions against cross-racial usage of racially indicative words and tropes seem muddled, seeming to make common cause with traditional segregationists. But, if I might borrow an arrow from the quiver of the latter, “one drop your black.”; a fortiori, any ‘white’ person tracing their linage far enough back, while under no requirement to surrender their passport, should be free to self-identify, to appropriate, to employ cross-racial tropes, is entitled to do blackface standup. Or to play Othello.
Having descended from a long line of ignorant savages, I am cognizant of the extent to which we are inclined to hold to any small emblem of civilized distinction, only begrudgingly sharing that which, from our blinkered perspective, we take to be of limited resource. And that descendancy including rural Southern whites competing with Negroes within the same niche as laborers, field hands, small land owners or sharecroppers, sharing the same Bible but not the same church—living cheek by jowl, one and the other, while striving to maintain a porous barricade against the reciprocal flow of genetic information and cultural appropriation.
To the extent that civilization advances as a dialectical ratcheting up of social concepts, there is a tendency to hold fast to recently acquired assumptions, especially if hypothetical assumptions are seen as socially effective in the eradication of previous, traditionally held positions subsequently recognized as developmentally restrictive prejudices. The problem arises that in dialectic progression the new becomes the traditional orthodoxy to be defended as a new chapter in the continuation of the last war. In promoting the restitutive enablement of black integrity, social academics, activists, and fellow travelers are prone to hold fast to ridged portrayals of blacks as a unitary group corresponding to an overarching stereotype of racial identity, leaving little room for nuance, let alone a vision of individuals free of categorical restrictions to the pursuit of their interests in an open, pluralistic society.
There is a drift toward euphemistic replacement of words and a narrowing and specificity of word usage concordant with modes of thinking in categorical terms, exclusive of ambiguity, in order to eliminate exceptions to useful generalizations. Such constitutes an effective tool for those who would shape the cultural fabric to their own ends. That which is unique to the particular is inadmissible to the generalization. Admittedly particulars are the datapoints of generalizations, but generalizations, that which may be said of all within the category, having been established, particulars cease to be unique, are but supportive data points. Generalizations are powerful inversely to their exceptions, which, in the interest of effective application, must be ignored, eliminated, or discredited. And with words: define the word, define the thought; define the possibility of what may be said, of what thoughts may be capable of being formed from those words, limited to thoughts consistent with the integrity of the generalization. Generalizations, powerful tools in themselves, may, with others, and with selected, illustrative particularities, be bundled together to form an authoritative nexus, currently of note, in service to the cause of social justice.
Afternote: Plucked from the ether, the following: “‘The Nigger of the Narcissus’ is one of Conrad's lesser-known novels. This is the first and last time the title will be fully spelled out in this article.”
Man, I had to close my balcony door for this snippet as I didn't want my multicultural neighbours hearing it :)
The word does hold rather a lot of power, doesn't it? For some they lose their minds, for others it becomes a way to bully and destroy others.
Kind of like the 'c' word for women, although I don't think we have as much power to police a 'bad word' as much as POC. But I'm with Nishad G, if it's THAT bad, no one can say it, or everyone can say it.
Given how quickly the left rendered highly charged words like racist, transphobic, violence, assault, genocide, assault, and misogynist largely meaningless, if we announced an n-word free-for-all right now, the word would cease to have power by Labour Day.
I can't think of an analogue globally to the word, in the sense of reappropriating a hateful slur to a 'term of endearment'. The K-word (k*ffir) in South Africa is legally sanctioned. Coloured Namibians don't identify as *baasters*; they embrace themselves as Coloured.
It's why the N-word is such a peculiar case. As is true with any charged term of language, either anyone can say it or no one does.
There is some kind of disconnect here. We are discussing a word. A word that has become "Negronite", in that some people believe it can harm or seriously weaken someone.
But we're not discussing the literal thousands of murders, indiscriminate shootings, car jackings, beatings, rapes, lootings, and robbing of said people whom claim that someone hurt their feelings with this word.
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!"
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 !
When Michael Jackson’s HIStory album was first released in 1995, the Simon Wiesenthal Center was shocked to hear that some of the lyrics in the song, They Don’t Care About Us, contained words like: “Jew me, sue me, kick me, kike me....” The Center immediately protested these obviously antisemitic stereotypes that millions of people would be exposed to, directly to Michael Jackson and demanded that he and Sony Records remove the offensive lyrics from the album.
Michael responded by personally calling Rabbis Hier and Cooper and expressing his deep remorse and then following up with a letter* where he wrote, "Unfortunately, my choice of words may have unintentionally hurt the people I wanted to stand in solidarity with ... I intend to include in all albums that have not been shipped as of this date, the paragraphs above so that no one can listen to my music and misconstrue my intentions." True to his word, not only did he do that, but a week or so later, he went back into the studio, deleted the offensive lyrics, and re-recorded the song.
We all remember. My point still stands, which is intent SHOULD usurp impact. Esp given proper context, etc. Seems we have willfully lost this intelligence. Which is shameful, and the real thrust of Glenn/John's discussion.
While driving for Lyft, it reminds me of many times I would pick up a car full of female white college students who wanted to listen to Gangster rap. They knew all the words while hammered and going hard in the back seat and the 3rd row! They never asked and simply said "crank that up"
"they have a right to feel safe." Infants and small children have a natural right to feel safe, but not maturing children nor young adults. You don't grow into adulthood in any real sense if you are in such a protected environment that you feel safe, you never develop the intelligence or will to stand on your own feet - and stand your ground. Colleges should not be nursery schools.
There is no right to feel safe, or a right any feeling. In many cases, feeling safe is a good thing but that doesn't make it a right. And sometimes, feeling safe is a bad thing but that doesn't mean it must be avoided.
And it's not a natural right. A natural right is something you can exercise on your own. Safety is something that, as an infant or young child, needs to be provided by someone else. While I still don't think it's a right, using that as a reference, it is a civil right.
When I was growing up in the South, the common term for a Black person was Negro or Colored, then Afro or African-American. My parents were Conservative but respectful and we were taught never, ever to use the "N" word. To this day I will use much foul language when the situation calls for it, but never that word.
I have a real problem with this situation described for two reasons: First, a Black person can use the word to all degrees, even against each other, while if a White does it in a legitimate context, they are condemned.
The second concern is this problem with "safety". University is for learning and growing, and to report a professor for using a word in the context of education is ludicrous. The person who needs to be educated is the student in this case.
There seems to be a general consensus that "blacks" have the right to use the infamous magic word. OK. If we grant that "right" or privilege to "blacks," we have to define exactly who is "black" and allowed to use the n-word. How much "black blood" is needed in order to use the n-word, especially given that it is a favorite hobby of black elites to denounce many white-identified people as "blacks" supposedly "passing for white"? If we concede that "black blood" gives one the right to use the n-word, why shouldn't Latinos and Arabs be able to use it since nearly all of them have the dreaded "black blood" to various extents?
A general excuse cited for NOT punishing blacks who use the n-word is that it is some kind of comforting, comradely expression of racial affection and solidarity that blacks use with each other. What about the blacks who scream at your biracial children, "You think you white. You ain't nothing but a n*****!" Are people known to have "black blood" expected to take that kind of treatment with masochistic, slavish docility? School administrators will do nothing to protect them because it is understood that blacks have the "right" to abuse their own "property."
Traditional mulatto elites often use the n-word to refer to the real blacks and they use it as an expression of contempt for the people with whom they felt forced to share a hated name and "racial" status. Should they be punished for this, or is it simply an "internal" embarrassment to be swept under the rug?
If black American rappers choose to create "art" using the n-word and sell that "art" to anyone who can buy it, why shouldn't the buyers have the right to repeat those songs/raps for their own enjoyment? They paid good money for them. Instead, there seems to be an agreement that a "white" or otherwise "non-black" buyer should be crucified for repeating the n-word in a rap song.
One drop will get you a pass if you’re a Lefty. Full black won’t protect you if you’re conservative. Sad that people think this way but the pay is good.
Knowing something is coming is the leverage of censorship.
The identification and/or acknowledgment of impending censure, cancelation or attack can be a convoluted process.
When trauma, offensiveness and righteous indignation are constantly being extrapolated, self diagnosed and then validated without examination, discourse or debate, it becomes impossible to know when “it is coming” - whatever the it is.
(I think I channeled Bill Clinton on that last one 😬😳)
One is usually aware of how to say something when they know the who and the setting (where), but now the why behind any response is as fluid and unpredictable as rapids in merging rivers.
Thus the conversation in one’s head, combined with the actual conversation, makes human discourse with others an exhausting endeavor.
Aside from the social power play surrounding its utterance, this word is also simply interesting in its various meanings, from the blatant insult to many subtle ones.
However, because of the power play--by which its mere utterance is prohibited--analytic discussion of the word is just too cumbersome to be worth the effort.
"this word is also simply interesting in its various meanings"
Indeed. Meanings, pronunciations, the whole bit.
"analytic discussion of the word is just too cumbersome to be worth the effort"
Good friends (and decent people) in private settings can certainly engage in good-faith thoughtful discussions about that word. I don't think that has changed. The extremeness in sensitivity that we see now is a fairly recent development, as far as I can tell.
I'll never forget being at a club about 15 years ago. A Hispanic female bartender was serving me, and suddenly, this Hispanic male walks in and greets her rather enthusiastically. (They both looked like they were in their early 20s.) They were obviously close friends who hadn't seen each other in ages.
In any case, the so-called n-word was flying every which way throughout their conversation. No hesitations. No whispers. Totally unencumbered. And to be clear, I am sitting about at most two feet away from them.
They were using it as a term of endearment (like a whole lotta Black people did and do). Did it bother me? No. In fact, I thought it was kinda hilarious to see hip-hop culture seep so deeply into their worlds.
I later found out that young Asians and young Whites did this as well--intraracially *and* interracially. But something happened in the 2010s & 2020s to change all that. It's just not acceptable anymore, for whatever reasons.
I don't think it's necessarily a sign of enlightenment or progress. But it is the new standard. It is what it is.
And so you've done it, Charles! You've waded into an "analytic discussion" of the word.
That intra-racial use spreading to (almost always young) whites, Hispanics, and Asians is interesting. I remember it too (although I was too sensitive and already too old to use it myself). This suggested that meanings were spreading that would water down the earlier disparaging senses of the word, but as you mention, something happened in the 2010s and 2020s that changed that--one hundred percent in the opposite direction, to the point that the word cannot now even be uttered "in reference", as Glenn puts it.
But we've hardly even begun to scratch the surface here about this fascinating word. Long dissertations could be written.
---
Notes:
1. These would be weird dissertations, because they would be littered with a euphemism ("the N-word") for what they were actually talking about. And if the dissertation touched on the social issues surrounding saying the word or writing it out "in reference", the dissertation itself would have some sort of strange self-referential aspect to it. And down the rabbit hole we go.
2. It's time that this topic appears on the Glenn Show, because when I think of scholarly study of the history and uses of this word, John McWhorter always comes to mind--both because he's the only linguist I know of (besides Chomsky) and because he's constantly engaged in race issues.
It only has 'power' when given. Like any word. It has always been a 'political' term, but now its power serves the opposite of its former use as epithet. And as such, the distinction btwn use and reference is patently clear to EVERYONE. Which is exactly the intent of still imbuing the word with power.
Noted. And also in agreement. Also why we get nowhere. Black Americans, for the most part, dont want to give up that power. And that is unsustainable. Redemption/Reconciliation....or Retribution/Retaliation. Cant have both.
A. I don't see it as power whatsoever. Not real power. A kind of meaningless leverage at best.
B. Most African-Americans would not freak out over the way Jon used the term. I'm 99% certain about that. The academic world is something unto itself. There are a lot of rules that people can't relate to; a lot of students would agree.
But just for the record, I think race is a bs concept that too many folk bought into centuries ago. Thus, it's never about "us" vs "them" to me--it's about logic and being reasonable.
Unfortunately, far too often, people get used to the illogical, and no particular so-called race is immune.
Fair enough. I just don't want to exaggerate the importance of a word.
In Germany, you can't have a swastika. That might seem extreme here in America, but they have a deep history with the swastika as we do with the so-called n-word, Confederate flag, etc.
Granted, the inconsistency of its use is annoying and the consequences that can fall on some and not others is bizarre. But in the end, we are literally talking about a word. It's just as easy to not say it as it is to say it.
It's a class marker more than anything else, people of the upper classes (or social climbers) don't (or didn't) use the word in polite conversation, and its use was sharply proscribed, it marked you out as white trash. Mind you, those same classes were deeply racist in practice - my grandmother was a segregationist as much as any white nationalist today, she was an ardent believer in white supremacy, and joined Planned Parenthood in 1923 partially as a solution to the "Negro Problem". The same could be said for nearly all of my extended family - one of my uncles was the 1955 chairman of the Kansas City White Citizens Council. I guess I didn't pick it up by osmosis since I was pretty much brought up by the black servants, owing to parental incompetence, one of whom read everything that Grandmother threw away - the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Proceeds of the Naval Institute, and the like - and we'd talk about it doing errands and suchlike. We traded off the NYT Sunday Crossword, I'd get it on alternate weeks. So after he'd died, I mentioned this to a cousin who had a Masters in Education from Columbia University, and she said "Oh, you're just full of nonsense, you're silly, you know very well that Walter couldn't read, he's black" and that was the end of my conversation with her. Such ignorant people, even though they'd gone to Ivy League schools... and so forth and so on. I doubt they've changed in the 40 years since.
I'm seriously thinking about it, have been since yesterday, the memories come back in a flood, and it's kind of eating at me, since I have an opinion about this "woke" stuff - and I think most of it is contrived and fake - and it teaches people to be "racially aware" - and that's what comes before racism itself. And we could end up resegregating society with people in the different categories unable to converse honestly and forthrightly with one another. And this might serve another group's purpose - in the words of Sun Tzu, "if your opponent is united, divide him." I think it's no coincidence that this came out of the elite universities and has major corporate support - and then there's Fannie Kemble, writing on the construction of the Brunswick Canal in the 1830s... Lots to think about, it's going to come out in a confused jumble and the job will be to organize it in a coherent whole.
Maybe I'll put something on my substack page, there's a lot more, and I'm either blessed or cursed with a photographic memory, the scenes play back like movies...
I wouldn't go so far as to pin cowardice (or a lack of integrity) on the administration. The rules that wrecked Jon were likely the result of the Zeitgeist (and the fact that most people don't like losing their jobs).
The problem is the bizarre sensitivity (and inconsistency) that surrounds the word.
Don’ Say “_______”
Admittedly the term, heretofore referred to, if at all, as the ‘it’ word, is freighted by a long history of narrow, derogatory usage, in certain circles, leaving little room for ambiguity or contextual nuance, to the effect of being proscribed in polite society, of itself taken to be offensive regardless of context. Nonetheless, in other circles, especially in the vernacular of a certain minority, it enjoys colloquial utility enhanced by a broad range of situational nuance, to such an extent that it is one of the most commonly spoken words, after ‘fuck’, in the American language. Ironically, the term most emblematic in White usage of debasement has come in Black usage to symbolize the essence of hominess, an integral element of soul food. At the same time, it is indicative of the seemingly unbridgeable divide between the races, while the entitlement to its usage or the proscription thereof serves to illustrate and to solidify those boundaries.
Those supportive of trans-rights maintain that identity is first a subjective reality that society is obliged to recognize, as opposed to those who cling to the quaint notion of biological reality. Similarly one might maintain a claim to personal freedom of racial identity, whether a binary, either or choice, or a right to racial indeterminacy—that one may choose to maintain a fragmented identity, expressing behavioral characteristics beyond those defined by strictly segregated stereotypes corresponding to those assigned at birth.
While the argument can be indulged that sex, as defined in terms of DNA is an immutable fact, irrespective of one’s self-identification, hormonal manipulations, or pluming adjustments, the same may not be categorically said of one’s ‘race’ as the term is commonly understood. Some would argue that race is but a social construct while others—some of the same as would see sex defined by DNA—argue that race is first genetically defined, is real beyond social perception. Ironically, it is from the former that come the loudest insistence of racial solidity, while the latter emphasize the fluidity of racial boundaries, speaking of variations within breeding populations as contrasting to those between isolated populations and the rapid deterioration of distinctions when those barriers are removed.
While the physical nature of race enjoys a degree of consensual clarity among scientists engaged more directly in the biological underpinnings of that which is addressed within the citadels of the social sciences, proscriptions against cross-racial usage of racially indicative words and tropes seem muddled, seeming to make common cause with traditional segregationists. But, if I might borrow an arrow from the quiver of the latter, “one drop your black.”; a fortiori, any ‘white’ person tracing their linage far enough back, while under no requirement to surrender their passport, should be free to self-identify, to appropriate, to employ cross-racial tropes, is entitled to do blackface standup. Or to play Othello.
Having descended from a long line of ignorant savages, I am cognizant of the extent to which we are inclined to hold to any small emblem of civilized distinction, only begrudgingly sharing that which, from our blinkered perspective, we take to be of limited resource. And that descendancy including rural Southern whites competing with Negroes within the same niche as laborers, field hands, small land owners or sharecroppers, sharing the same Bible but not the same church—living cheek by jowl, one and the other, while striving to maintain a porous barricade against the reciprocal flow of genetic information and cultural appropriation.
To the extent that civilization advances as a dialectical ratcheting up of social concepts, there is a tendency to hold fast to recently acquired assumptions, especially if hypothetical assumptions are seen as socially effective in the eradication of previous, traditionally held positions subsequently recognized as developmentally restrictive prejudices. The problem arises that in dialectic progression the new becomes the traditional orthodoxy to be defended as a new chapter in the continuation of the last war. In promoting the restitutive enablement of black integrity, social academics, activists, and fellow travelers are prone to hold fast to ridged portrayals of blacks as a unitary group corresponding to an overarching stereotype of racial identity, leaving little room for nuance, let alone a vision of individuals free of categorical restrictions to the pursuit of their interests in an open, pluralistic society.
There is a drift toward euphemistic replacement of words and a narrowing and specificity of word usage concordant with modes of thinking in categorical terms, exclusive of ambiguity, in order to eliminate exceptions to useful generalizations. Such constitutes an effective tool for those who would shape the cultural fabric to their own ends. That which is unique to the particular is inadmissible to the generalization. Admittedly particulars are the datapoints of generalizations, but generalizations, that which may be said of all within the category, having been established, particulars cease to be unique, are but supportive data points. Generalizations are powerful inversely to their exceptions, which, in the interest of effective application, must be ignored, eliminated, or discredited. And with words: define the word, define the thought; define the possibility of what may be said, of what thoughts may be capable of being formed from those words, limited to thoughts consistent with the integrity of the generalization. Generalizations, powerful tools in themselves, may, with others, and with selected, illustrative particularities, be bundled together to form an authoritative nexus, currently of note, in service to the cause of social justice.
Afternote: Plucked from the ether, the following: “‘The Nigger of the Narcissus’ is one of Conrad's lesser-known novels. This is the first and last time the title will be fully spelled out in this article.”
How is it only Negros can say 'nigger'? See my post.
Man, I had to close my balcony door for this snippet as I didn't want my multicultural neighbours hearing it :)
The word does hold rather a lot of power, doesn't it? For some they lose their minds, for others it becomes a way to bully and destroy others.
Kind of like the 'c' word for women, although I don't think we have as much power to police a 'bad word' as much as POC. But I'm with Nishad G, if it's THAT bad, no one can say it, or everyone can say it.
Given how quickly the left rendered highly charged words like racist, transphobic, violence, assault, genocide, assault, and misogynist largely meaningless, if we announced an n-word free-for-all right now, the word would cease to have power by Labour Day.
When the student said, “Professor, that's racist.” -- was it ever clarified what aspect of Jon's utterance was racist?
1. Was it that he uttered the n-word in class?
2. Or was it that he made the argument that racial identity is fluid (or appears that way)?
His class sounds like the sort of analysis of culture that is really thought-provoking..
I can't think of an analogue globally to the word, in the sense of reappropriating a hateful slur to a 'term of endearment'. The K-word (k*ffir) in South Africa is legally sanctioned. Coloured Namibians don't identify as *baasters*; they embrace themselves as Coloured.
It's why the N-word is such a peculiar case. As is true with any charged term of language, either anyone can say it or no one does.
There is some kind of a weird social power play going on with this word. A form of bullying, as John says.
No one is insulted when hearing this word spoken "in reference" (as Glenn puts it), much less feels "unsafe".
Thats where the 'weird' comes in. How it gets determined as referenced vs used is slippery.
There is some kind of disconnect here. We are discussing a word. A word that has become "Negronite", in that some people believe it can harm or seriously weaken someone.
But we're not discussing the literal thousands of murders, indiscriminate shootings, car jackings, beatings, rapes, lootings, and robbing of said people whom claim that someone hurt their feelings with this word.
I suppose, this is a good as it gets.
The student has to mention crime?
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!"
I will add there is nothing about this that deals with safety or feeling safe.
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 !
Oh, dear. Wouldn’t have expected kids that far behind to be admitted.
Art School
That kid isn’t likely to take criticism well.
Michael Jackson had an entire album CD removed from the shelves because he used a slur used against Jewish people in one song.
He did not. That lyric was used to show how epithets are powerLESS. Words, nothing more.
When Michael Jackson’s HIStory album was first released in 1995, the Simon Wiesenthal Center was shocked to hear that some of the lyrics in the song, They Don’t Care About Us, contained words like: “Jew me, sue me, kick me, kike me....” The Center immediately protested these obviously antisemitic stereotypes that millions of people would be exposed to, directly to Michael Jackson and demanded that he and Sony Records remove the offensive lyrics from the album.
Michael responded by personally calling Rabbis Hier and Cooper and expressing his deep remorse and then following up with a letter* where he wrote, "Unfortunately, my choice of words may have unintentionally hurt the people I wanted to stand in solidarity with ... I intend to include in all albums that have not been shipped as of this date, the paragraphs above so that no one can listen to my music and misconstrue my intentions." True to his word, not only did he do that, but a week or so later, he went back into the studio, deleted the offensive lyrics, and re-recorded the song.
https://www.wiesenthal.com/about/news/jew-me-sue-me-kick-me.html
We all remember. My point still stands, which is intent SHOULD usurp impact. Esp given proper context, etc. Seems we have willfully lost this intelligence. Which is shameful, and the real thrust of Glenn/John's discussion.
Music CDs were removed because he used a slur.
You have no point.
There was even a problem getting radio play
https://2paragraphs.com/2014/12/how-sony-crushed-michael-jacksons-race-song-they-dont-care-about-us/
While driving for Lyft, it reminds me of many times I would pick up a car full of female white college students who wanted to listen to Gangster rap. They knew all the words while hammered and going hard in the back seat and the 3rd row! They never asked and simply said "crank that up"
Just curious, Harlan... how did you feel about it? Did it seem natural in that context? Did it offend you?
"they have a right to feel safe." Infants and small children have a natural right to feel safe, but not maturing children nor young adults. You don't grow into adulthood in any real sense if you are in such a protected environment that you feel safe, you never develop the intelligence or will to stand on your own feet - and stand your ground. Colleges should not be nursery schools.
There is no right to feel safe, or a right any feeling. In many cases, feeling safe is a good thing but that doesn't make it a right. And sometimes, feeling safe is a bad thing but that doesn't mean it must be avoided.
And it's not a natural right. A natural right is something you can exercise on your own. Safety is something that, as an infant or young child, needs to be provided by someone else. While I still don't think it's a right, using that as a reference, it is a civil right.
When I was growing up in the South, the common term for a Black person was Negro or Colored, then Afro or African-American. My parents were Conservative but respectful and we were taught never, ever to use the "N" word. To this day I will use much foul language when the situation calls for it, but never that word.
I have a real problem with this situation described for two reasons: First, a Black person can use the word to all degrees, even against each other, while if a White does it in a legitimate context, they are condemned.
The second concern is this problem with "safety". University is for learning and growing, and to report a professor for using a word in the context of education is ludicrous. The person who needs to be educated is the student in this case.
There seems to be a general consensus that "blacks" have the right to use the infamous magic word. OK. If we grant that "right" or privilege to "blacks," we have to define exactly who is "black" and allowed to use the n-word. How much "black blood" is needed in order to use the n-word, especially given that it is a favorite hobby of black elites to denounce many white-identified people as "blacks" supposedly "passing for white"? If we concede that "black blood" gives one the right to use the n-word, why shouldn't Latinos and Arabs be able to use it since nearly all of them have the dreaded "black blood" to various extents?
A general excuse cited for NOT punishing blacks who use the n-word is that it is some kind of comforting, comradely expression of racial affection and solidarity that blacks use with each other. What about the blacks who scream at your biracial children, "You think you white. You ain't nothing but a n*****!" Are people known to have "black blood" expected to take that kind of treatment with masochistic, slavish docility? School administrators will do nothing to protect them because it is understood that blacks have the "right" to abuse their own "property."
Traditional mulatto elites often use the n-word to refer to the real blacks and they use it as an expression of contempt for the people with whom they felt forced to share a hated name and "racial" status. Should they be punished for this, or is it simply an "internal" embarrassment to be swept under the rug?
If black American rappers choose to create "art" using the n-word and sell that "art" to anyone who can buy it, why shouldn't the buyers have the right to repeat those songs/raps for their own enjoyment? They paid good money for them. Instead, there seems to be an agreement that a "white" or otherwise "non-black" buyer should be crucified for repeating the n-word in a rap song.
In your comment, you start to delve into the "analytic discussion" of this word's many "subtle" meanings that I hint at in another comment here.
One drop will get you a pass if you’re a Lefty. Full black won’t protect you if you’re conservative. Sad that people think this way but the pay is good.
Knowing something is coming is the leverage of censorship.
The identification and/or acknowledgment of impending censure, cancelation or attack can be a convoluted process.
When trauma, offensiveness and righteous indignation are constantly being extrapolated, self diagnosed and then validated without examination, discourse or debate, it becomes impossible to know when “it is coming” - whatever the it is.
(I think I channeled Bill Clinton on that last one 😬😳)
One is usually aware of how to say something when they know the who and the setting (where), but now the why behind any response is as fluid and unpredictable as rapids in merging rivers.
Thus the conversation in one’s head, combined with the actual conversation, makes human discourse with others an exhausting endeavor.
The word has power. Crazy power.
But its usage is soooo convoluted. So vastly different from any other cuss word.
No, Jon did not deserve to be censured. But he had to know it was coming.
Aside from the social power play surrounding its utterance, this word is also simply interesting in its various meanings, from the blatant insult to many subtle ones.
However, because of the power play--by which its mere utterance is prohibited--analytic discussion of the word is just too cumbersome to be worth the effort.
"this word is also simply interesting in its various meanings"
Indeed. Meanings, pronunciations, the whole bit.
"analytic discussion of the word is just too cumbersome to be worth the effort"
Good friends (and decent people) in private settings can certainly engage in good-faith thoughtful discussions about that word. I don't think that has changed. The extremeness in sensitivity that we see now is a fairly recent development, as far as I can tell.
I'll never forget being at a club about 15 years ago. A Hispanic female bartender was serving me, and suddenly, this Hispanic male walks in and greets her rather enthusiastically. (They both looked like they were in their early 20s.) They were obviously close friends who hadn't seen each other in ages.
In any case, the so-called n-word was flying every which way throughout their conversation. No hesitations. No whispers. Totally unencumbered. And to be clear, I am sitting about at most two feet away from them.
They were using it as a term of endearment (like a whole lotta Black people did and do). Did it bother me? No. In fact, I thought it was kinda hilarious to see hip-hop culture seep so deeply into their worlds.
I later found out that young Asians and young Whites did this as well--intraracially *and* interracially. But something happened in the 2010s & 2020s to change all that. It's just not acceptable anymore, for whatever reasons.
I don't think it's necessarily a sign of enlightenment or progress. But it is the new standard. It is what it is.
And so you've done it, Charles! You've waded into an "analytic discussion" of the word.
That intra-racial use spreading to (almost always young) whites, Hispanics, and Asians is interesting. I remember it too (although I was too sensitive and already too old to use it myself). This suggested that meanings were spreading that would water down the earlier disparaging senses of the word, but as you mention, something happened in the 2010s and 2020s that changed that--one hundred percent in the opposite direction, to the point that the word cannot now even be uttered "in reference", as Glenn puts it.
But we've hardly even begun to scratch the surface here about this fascinating word. Long dissertations could be written.
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Notes:
1. These would be weird dissertations, because they would be littered with a euphemism ("the N-word") for what they were actually talking about. And if the dissertation touched on the social issues surrounding saying the word or writing it out "in reference", the dissertation itself would have some sort of strange self-referential aspect to it. And down the rabbit hole we go.
2. It's time that this topic appears on the Glenn Show, because when I think of scholarly study of the history and uses of this word, John McWhorter always comes to mind--both because he's the only linguist I know of (besides Chomsky) and because he's constantly engaged in race issues.
It only has 'power' when given. Like any word. It has always been a 'political' term, but now its power serves the opposite of its former use as epithet. And as such, the distinction btwn use and reference is patently clear to EVERYONE. Which is exactly the intent of still imbuing the word with power.
"It only has 'power' when given. Like any word." Exactly.
We are not in disagreement. Yes, it's ridiculous. That's not the issue.
Rules/Laws don't always makes sense. They don't have to. But they're there.
I am only saying that Jon had to know what was likely to follow (even if it was a slip). He's not first to go through this.
Noted. And also in agreement. Also why we get nowhere. Black Americans, for the most part, dont want to give up that power. And that is unsustainable. Redemption/Reconciliation....or Retribution/Retaliation. Cant have both.
A. I don't see it as power whatsoever. Not real power. A kind of meaningless leverage at best.
B. Most African-Americans would not freak out over the way Jon used the term. I'm 99% certain about that. The academic world is something unto itself. There are a lot of rules that people can't relate to; a lot of students would agree.
But just for the record, I think race is a bs concept that too many folk bought into centuries ago. Thus, it's never about "us" vs "them" to me--it's about logic and being reasonable.
Unfortunately, far too often, people get used to the illogical, and no particular so-called race is immune.
We are talking cultural power here. Nothing else.
Fair enough. I just don't want to exaggerate the importance of a word.
In Germany, you can't have a swastika. That might seem extreme here in America, but they have a deep history with the swastika as we do with the so-called n-word, Confederate flag, etc.
Granted, the inconsistency of its use is annoying and the consequences that can fall on some and not others is bizarre. But in the end, we are literally talking about a word. It's just as easy to not say it as it is to say it.
It's a class marker more than anything else, people of the upper classes (or social climbers) don't (or didn't) use the word in polite conversation, and its use was sharply proscribed, it marked you out as white trash. Mind you, those same classes were deeply racist in practice - my grandmother was a segregationist as much as any white nationalist today, she was an ardent believer in white supremacy, and joined Planned Parenthood in 1923 partially as a solution to the "Negro Problem". The same could be said for nearly all of my extended family - one of my uncles was the 1955 chairman of the Kansas City White Citizens Council. I guess I didn't pick it up by osmosis since I was pretty much brought up by the black servants, owing to parental incompetence, one of whom read everything that Grandmother threw away - the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Proceeds of the Naval Institute, and the like - and we'd talk about it doing errands and suchlike. We traded off the NYT Sunday Crossword, I'd get it on alternate weeks. So after he'd died, I mentioned this to a cousin who had a Masters in Education from Columbia University, and she said "Oh, you're just full of nonsense, you're silly, you know very well that Walter couldn't read, he's black" and that was the end of my conversation with her. Such ignorant people, even though they'd gone to Ivy League schools... and so forth and so on. I doubt they've changed in the 40 years since.
Wow. Sounds like you have a book swirling around in you, stream.
I'm seriously thinking about it, have been since yesterday, the memories come back in a flood, and it's kind of eating at me, since I have an opinion about this "woke" stuff - and I think most of it is contrived and fake - and it teaches people to be "racially aware" - and that's what comes before racism itself. And we could end up resegregating society with people in the different categories unable to converse honestly and forthrightly with one another. And this might serve another group's purpose - in the words of Sun Tzu, "if your opponent is united, divide him." I think it's no coincidence that this came out of the elite universities and has major corporate support - and then there's Fannie Kemble, writing on the construction of the Brunswick Canal in the 1830s... Lots to think about, it's going to come out in a confused jumble and the job will be to organize it in a coherent whole.
Maybe I'll put something on my substack page, there's a lot more, and I'm either blessed or cursed with a photographic memory, the scenes play back like movies...
He had to know the administration was completely without intellectual integrity? Probably so.
I wouldn't go so far as to pin cowardice (or a lack of integrity) on the administration. The rules that wrecked Jon were likely the result of the Zeitgeist (and the fact that most people don't like losing their jobs).
The problem is the bizarre sensitivity (and inconsistency) that surrounds the word.