<font size="5"><center>
Putting N-Word on Trial Again Is Empty Activism</font size></center>
New America Media, Commentary
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Jun 09, 2006
Editor's Note: More important issues should fire up activism in the black community than the unnerving endurance of one vile expletive, says the writer. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a political analyst and social issues commentator, and the author of The Crisis in Black and Black (Middle Passage Press). The Hutchinson Report can also be read at
www.earlofarihutchinson.blogspot.com.
LOS ANGELES--The never-ending debate over the "N" word heated up again on the street and, oddly, in a courtroom. A parade of black scholars, writers, activists, hip-hop artists and plain folk even sparred over its use, in a panel discussion in New York.
The renewed public debate over the N word has been fueled by the trial of Nicholas Minucci, who is charged with assault and robbery in the June 2005 baseball bat attack on Glenn Moore in Queens. Minucci is white and Moore is black. Fat Nick, as he is affectionately known, allegedly pummeled Moore with the N word before assaulting him with a bat.
The debate was sparked by a national campaign by black activists to ban the use of the N word. There's even a website that hawks T-shirts and DVDs and exhorts blacks, especially young blacks, to solemnly pledge not to use the word or patronize anyone who puts out products that use it. Presumably, it's aimed at rappers and a popular comic-strip writer who have turned the N word into a lucrative growth industry.
The anti-N word campaigners are both right and wrong in assailing it. There's no disagreement that the term hurled by white bigots is vile, offensive, hate-filled and has caused much personal pain and suffering. But that's where agreement ends.
Many rappers have made a mighty effort to stand the word on its head and take the hurt out of it. Their effort has some merit and isn't new. Dick Gregory had the same idea some years ago when he titled his autobiography "------." Black writer Robert DeCoy also tried the same racial shock-therapy on whites when he titled his novel "The ------ Bible." Richard Pryor for a time practically made the term his personal mantra.
Though words aren't value-neutral and are often used to promote hate, they in themselves don't trigger racial violence or psychologically destroy blacks. The N word did not stir the century of Jim Crow violence, segregation, disenfranchisement and poverty that blacks suffered. These were done to preserve white political and economic power, control, and privilege. But even in those days, when a white person, especially a celebrity, athlete or public official, slipped and used the word or made any overt racist reference, black outrage was swift and ferocious. The NAACP even pushed the Merriam Webster dictionary to purge the word.
But the N word in itself isn't a code sign for discrimination or a trigger to commit racial violence. The current outcry over it, however, shows a double standard far too many blacks apply to whites over its use. In the past, a small band of activists, and Bill Cosby, waged war against the use of the N word by blacks. They've been the exception.
Blacks have been more than willing to give N-word-using blacks a pass. The indulgence sends the subtle signal that the word is hardly the earth-shattering, illegitimate pejorative many blacks and whites think it is. Fat Nick pretty much argued this in his defense. He claimed that his black friends routinely use the word. A black attorney, who is also a hip-hop record producer, partially backed him up, saying that the word had lost some of its sting since white hip-hoppers use it and don't mean any offense by it. It was self-serving ploy by a defendant grasping to paint himself as being free of bigotry. But the point was a good one.
That's not the only reason the N word debate is suspect. The day before the New York panelists shadow-boxed over the term, the nation marked the 25th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic. Other than a handful of articles and remembrances, the day mostly came and went. But blacks, particularly the black poor, have been hammered the hardest by the disease. A few days before, beltway sniper John Muhammad was convicted. Following closely was the slaughter of a family in Indianapolis allegedly by young blacks.
That's a warning that the cycle of crime, violence, hopelessness and desperation that wracks some poor black communities has spilled over with deadly consequences. Failing inner-city public schools, the near-Depression level unemployment among young black males, the more than 1 million blacks packing America's jails and the surging homelessness numbers, in which blacks make up a disproportionate share, are more warnings that the ills of the black poor are mounting. Yet, there are few impassioned panels, pulsating websites, marches and demonstrations by blacks demanding action on these crises.
Then again, it's much easier and more fun to generate passion and heat over a word, than over real problems of crisis proportions. Putting the N word on trial again won't solve those.
http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=fb86f45bcfac20f17c7e74f7a1af1578
