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THE N-WORD AND THE DEATH OF DECENCY

In the aftermath of Michael Richards’ shouting of the N word onstage at hecklers at a SoCal comedy club, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Maxine Waters (D) and others are urging rap and hip hop artists to stop using the racial epithet.

It’s puzzling to me why Michael Richards’ outburst is the catalyst for this new campaign, but I can’t object to anyone trying to get people to be more responsible.

But let’s be clear about black folks using the N word. If I hear another white person say, “How come it’s OK if a black person uses the word and not a white person?” I think I’m going to go Ike Turner on someone.

This isn’t hard to understand. The gay cast of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” has no trouble using an offensive term for gays in the title but probably would object to someone angrily calling them a queer on the street. Ronald Reagan sometimes put Irish jokes in his speeches, something he got away with because of his Irish ancestry. Can you imagine if he told Jewish jokes? I’ve heard women refer to themselves as the B word but if you hurled that epithet at them in anger, they’d be shocked.
And we all can berate family members but let someone outside the family do it and a fight is on. So I’m tired of white people acting like they don’t get it. You know the rules.

Realistically, the N word has already been marginalized. It wasn’t long ago that whites used the word in its most hateful sense publicly without a second thought. Such a shift has happened in this country that very few whites would openly use the word for fear of being stigmatized as a racist. That’s not to say that bigotry has ended. It’s just that the word is seen as too inflammatory to utter.

Now, a variation of the word is primarily used among African-American comedians and rappers. But Jesse Jackson and others calling for its complete ban know that comedians and rappers didn’t start it’s usage in the black community. We’ve used it for a long time among ourselves.

And a good resource for anyone who is interested in this topic is Randall Kennedy’s excellent book “Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word” and Todd Williams’ equally illuminating documentary, “The N Word”.

But allow me to submit that the real problem isn’t with the N word. The real problem is the coarsening of American culture. When I was a kid, I might listen to a Richard Pryor album at a low volume to make sure my parents didn’t hear me listening to it. Nobody back then would’ve thought about blasting a Richard Pryor tape in their car for the neighborhood to hear. Yet young people today see nothing wrong with blasting music with the foulest lyrics for all to hear.

It’s not just music. I hear people of every color dropping F bombs in public. I’ve heard people stroll by me in stores chatting on their cell phones dropping four letter words, oblivious to those around them.

People wear T-shirts with God-awful sayings and pictures on them. While some people drive around with bumper stickers that would’ve made Lenny Bruce cringe. You see this type of thing all the time in our society these days.

These are societal changes and the N word is only a part of it.

Believe me, I cringe when I hear young brothers throwing the word around in public.

Now I’m certainly no prude. A filthy word hasn’t been invented that hasn’t crossed my lips at some point. But I do have home training. I do have common sense.

It’s not necessarily an N word problem we have. It’s a courtesy problem. And it cuts through racial and socioeconomic lines. I think we’ve forgotten that there’s a time and a place for everything. What we’re really talking about is the death of decency.