Ta-Nehisi Coates: Leave the N-Word Alone
The war over the "n" word has been joined. Last week, after a one-sided debate, the New York City Council voted for an toothless ban on the word nigger. While acknowledging that the measure was only symbolic and unenforcable, activists and councilmembers practically fell over each other to rail against the word's toxic effect. The ban, of course, will fail, not because it is an unenforceable waste of time, words and taxpayer's money (it's technically a "resolution," which does not require the Mayor's signature), but for the same reasons that other kinds of cleansing efforts have failed for decades: nigger is a great word.
Black puritans have been trying to ban the word since the 1920s when the white hipster Carl Van Vechten published the book Nigger Heaven. They continued their war through attacks on Redd Foxx, blaxploitation and Donald Goines. But all their efforts have been rewarded with gangsta rap, an art-form which has made nigger arguably the most well-known racial or ethnic slur on the planet.
Now the new puritans have coalesced into a movement, creatively named Ban The N-Word. Their campaign is mostly virtual, consisting of e-mail manifestos and a website which, among other things, rails against the evils of Eddie Murphy's new film Norbit. The New York City Council resolution is the movement's first victory, and now they are hatching plans to bring their task force to a town near you.
Like all language or thought police, the nigger-nazis are humorless snobs who dream of a world without toilets. They are also caught in the ancient and reductionist view that the black community is little more than a motley crew of victims. Whenever someone uses nigger, they break out into breathless stories of lynchings, lunch counters and police dogs. They then assert that we nigger-users are doing little more than confirming and perpetuating our own ignorance and participating in a racist conspiracy.
I don't mean to belittle the very real effects of racism. But I do mean to belittle people who see me as nothing more than the progeny of slaves. The black puritanical view turns black people from active agents into helpless targets, and seeks to deny us the ability to look at our condition and interpret it as we will. I've heard nigger used as an honorific, an insult, a verb and even an interjection. I get a warm feeling every time I hear someone come up with a new way to deploy it....
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Black puritans have been trying to ban the word since the 1920s when the white hipster Carl Van Vechten published the book Nigger Heaven. They continued their war through attacks on Redd Foxx, blaxploitation and Donald Goines. But all their efforts have been rewarded with gangsta rap, an art-form which has made nigger arguably the most well-known racial or ethnic slur on the planet.
Now the new puritans have coalesced into a movement, creatively named Ban The N-Word. Their campaign is mostly virtual, consisting of e-mail manifestos and a website which, among other things, rails against the evils of Eddie Murphy's new film Norbit. The New York City Council resolution is the movement's first victory, and now they are hatching plans to bring their task force to a town near you.
Like all language or thought police, the nigger-nazis are humorless snobs who dream of a world without toilets. They are also caught in the ancient and reductionist view that the black community is little more than a motley crew of victims. Whenever someone uses nigger, they break out into breathless stories of lynchings, lunch counters and police dogs. They then assert that we nigger-users are doing little more than confirming and perpetuating our own ignorance and participating in a racist conspiracy.
I don't mean to belittle the very real effects of racism. But I do mean to belittle people who see me as nothing more than the progeny of slaves. The black puritanical view turns black people from active agents into helpless targets, and seeks to deny us the ability to look at our condition and interpret it as we will. I've heard nigger used as an honorific, an insult, a verb and even an interjection. I get a warm feeling every time I hear someone come up with a new way to deploy it....