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“Oprah, for instance, still can’t get past the n-word issue (or the n-gga issue, with all apologies to Ms. Winfrey). I can respect her position. To her, it’s a matter of acknowledging the deep and painful history of the word. To me, it’s just a word, a word whose power is owned by the user and his or her intention. People give words power, so banning a word is futile, really. “N-gga” becomes “porch monkey” becomes “coon” and so on if that’s what in a person’s heart. The key is to change the person. And we change people through conversation, not through censorship.” Jay-Z, Decoded

28 Minutes to Midnight…

This is about a word. One lousy word that many people believe should never be used.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I try to choose my words carefully. I’d better. I’m an educator and I’m always talking, forever pontificating and spitting forth bold proclamations. And, like many of my colleagues, I’ve enjoyed a very fulfilling career in the field—mostly, I suppose, because I’ve gotten a kick out of my students and have managed to say the right things at the right times and in the right way. Educators, if you haven’t noticed, live and die by what comes out of their mouths, not to mention what rolls off of their keyboards. I’m no different. Trust me, every word in this book was carefully chosen. Every one.

I will, however, admit to blunders. All educators, all public speakers have these moments; they’re unavoidable. I suppose my lowest moment had to be the time a student suggested that I was a racist. And, to be honest, I had nobody to blame but myself.

I’ll call him Jamaal, an African-American student who would later go on to have a productive career in the NBA. He sat in the far row, right behind another high-caliber athlete, who later attended the University of Florida on a baseball scholarship, and had a few successful years in the majors with Colorado and Kansas City. As was my custom, I began the semester with a discussion of racism and stereotypes, dissecting the ignorant assumptions and generalizations people make about other people who are different from them. I usually pick on the Irish first, informing my students that I’m third-generation Irish-American and that the Irish are always drunk. They chuckle and nod their heads, but I tell them that, strangely enough, I’m not a huge fan of alcohol. I just don’t drink that much. I tell them that I should start drinking a little more—responsibly, of course. I’d like to drink, but I always forget. Seems I just never make the time to enjoy alcohol. I consider myself a walking contradiction. In fact, I fear that I’ll be forced to turn over my Irish card one day.

A student raised his hand. He reminded the class that Polish people are dumb. I nodded and thanked him for that very apropos stereotype, but reminded him and the rest of the class that the late Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) was Polish, yet was one of the most intelligent, linguistically-gifted men the world has seen in quite some time. But, yes, the Polish have often been generalized as less-than-stellar in the area of intelligence. We went on. Canadian tourists in Florida can be annoying, the Japanese are scrambling over the globe with their cameras, Italians are great cooks but are abysmal at war, Jews are mostly doctors and lawyers, white people can’t dance, while blacks all love basketball—all supremely idiotic assumptions, of course. At this point I always share the story of one of my all-time favorite students raising his hand and telling the class that, despite the fact he was black, he had absolutely no regard for the sport of basketball. He was dead serious, too. Talk about thirty stunned and befuddled white kids.

As I continued with my lecture on stereotypes, I reminded my students that words like spic, gook, wop and nigger were words that still hurt. I really showed my age when I told the class that George Jefferson used to call his white neighbor, Tom, a honkey. The students had absolutely no idea what honkey meant, nor did they have a clue as to who George Jefferson was. They had, however, heard of the term cracker. Then I digressed and painted the scene at Ellis Island, many decades earlier, clarifying the term WOP (without papers). I could see the bell was about to ring, so I left them with an assignment to read the next chapter in their texts.

The following day, Jamaal was absent. I didn’t think anything of it. I just assumed he was sick. But when he missed my class again the next day, I did a little digging, which is what I should have done the day before. What I discovered was curious: Jamaal had been in school both days, just not in my class. On my way to break, I happened to run into a colleague who taught around the corner from me. I mentioned Jamaal’s absence, because I knew that he and Jamaal were pretty close. He nodded his head, “Well, Jamaal really doesn’t want to go back to your class,” he explained. I stopped in my tracks. Why? What for? What was the matter? “You used the word nigger in class the other day, and he’s really upset.” I thought about it. Yes, I had used that word—along with several other slurs. I’d been doing it for years, and nobody had complained before. I had taught very few African American students, so the issue had really never presented itself. “I’ll talk to him,” I said. He shook his head and informed me that Jamaal did not want to speak to me. “Well, can you get him back to my class? I mean, I don’t really want to turn Jamaal in for skipping.” What I wanted was to get the kid back in my class, so he could see I wasn’t a bad guy. My colleague said he’d talk to Jamaal and, thankfully, he was back in his seat the following morning.

The quarter progressed. We moved from the subject of discrimination to substance abuse. After that, we tackled sexuality and then moved on to crime and justice. Jamaal made little effort to pay attention. He rarely took notes, and often put his head down on the desk. Instead of confronting him, I just let it go. I knew exactly what he was doing. I also knew that, from my previous conversation with my colleague, Jamaal wasn’t going to give me the time of day. He’d already made up his mind about me and the course. He was done. He was over it.

I got angry. How dare this kid throw in the towel, and assume I was a racist? Who was he to make such a snap judgment because of one lousy word used in an academic context? Had he made the same stink, the year before, in sophomore English when he was required to read Huckleberry Finn? Or Lord Jim? Or perhaps One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest freshman year? And don’t think for a minute, I fumed, that I didn’t know he’d used that very word before in conversations with his homies. I think that bugged me the most. At any rate, toward the end of the quarter we found out that Jamaal was transferring to an all-black school twenty minutes to the south. I thought fine. Good riddance. Go ahead and change high schools, so you can play on a different basketball team your senior year. See who cares, because it won’t be me.

Anyway, he got the grade he earned in my class, and was soon gone. We finished the semester. Summer came and went. Jamaal went on to star for his new school the following year, and I resented seeing his name every time it appeared in the sports page, which was quite a bit I should point out. I stewed about the whole series of events for quite a while, before finally archiving the issue somewhere between the last super bowl and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So, let me say this to be completely fair. In the ensuing years, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Jamaal. Apparently he’s an upstanding citizen, a good father and a loving husband, even a charitable guy. He’s visited different schools, and has spoken to kids about doing the right things. He may harbor resentment towards me after all these years, or maybe he just thinks I’m an idiot. Heck, maybe he doesn’t even remember me. Regardless, I’m okay with that. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have used that word in my lectures, and no I don’t know for sure that Jamaal ever used the N—word in the company of his “homies”. I never personally heard him utter the word, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt there.

In the years since the Jamaal incident, I’ve done some soul-searching, and have decided that I won’t use n— in my lectures again. I simply refer to it in class as the N—word. I’ll occasionally use it in print for academic and literary reasons, (you’ll see it in print here, of course) but I won’t speak it out loud in the presence of my students; I feel that it’s a vile word, one of the most disgusting compilations of letters ever assembled. And it’s even worse when it’s uttered out loud. I want you to know that I could not have made an admission like this a few years ago, so I guess it shows how I’ve grown as a person (and God-knows I still have a lot of growing to do). But there. I’ve said it.

Confession is good for the soul.

One lousy word.

Now how’s this for coincidence. A few years after Jamaal’s departure, I received a call from another colleague of mine, who is the dean of students at a private high school outside of Indianapolis. He was none other than Jamaal’s basketball coach at our high school back in the day. I swear I’m not making this up. Anyway, he told me of a situation whereby several of his black students were strutting about campus calling each other n-gger. He wanted to know if I had run across anything like this at my own school. I told him I had, but only a few times. “I wouldn’t be surprised if more of it went on behind my back,” I said. Naturally, he wanted to know what I had done about it. Resolved from the Jamaal incident several years prior, I didn’t hesitate to tell him that we did not tolerate the use of that word by any student, regardless of race, or for any reason. Period. I could sense his hesitation at the other end. “Look,” I added, “For years they’ve been telling us n-gger is one of the vilest, if not the most vile word in the English language. As adults and especially as educators,” I said, “we cannot allow these kids to demean each other in this way. Of course they’ll never understand what we’re trying to accomplish, but that shouldn’t stop us from stepping up to the plate and showing some leadership.” He agreed with me, but he also wanted to remind me that these kids had no racist intent toward one another; they were all buddies. The N-word, he continued, meant something different to them—certainly different than if it came from the mouth of a white person. I understood fully. I’d heard this argument many times before. It was old hat. In fact, I was well-aware of Randall Kennedy’s controversial book— Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word and some of the questionable claims made by the Harvard professor. Here’s just one of those claims: “It (the N-word),” Kennedy says, “can be used right now to terrorize and demean people. It can also be used to say you’re my man, to show solidarity, to satirize racists and put them down.”¹

Here’s where I still have trouble with this word. Just listen to Kennedy. If you’re at all like me, you might find the good professor’s claims that we are satirizing racists by using the N-word to be, well, odd not to mention flat-out irresponsible. Is it okay to be a little self-deprecating? I’d say yes, (I’ve done it plenty of times by telling my students that I’m Irish-American and supposed to be an accomplished drinker) but there’s a wee difference between poking fun at oneself as opposed to demeaning oneself with one of the filthiest words in the English language. My guess is that any racist, worth his weight in excrement, would be delighted to see his victims pick up this putrid torch and carry it forward. Moreover, wouldn’t the proliferation of the N-word among African Americans be a victory for the racist? Wouldn’t the victims be doing the bigot’s job for him? It sure looks that way to me, but maybe I’m missing something.

Kennedy needs to be told that the whole satirizing the perpetrator angle has been tried before. A group of Native Americans, attending the University of Northern Colorado, tried it back in 2002. Absolutely fed up with the racist names and mascots, used at various schools and with professional sports teams, that mocked their rich heritage (the Braves, the Chiefs, the Redskins, the Redmen, the Savages, the Indians and the Seminoles) the students decided to take action. When it came time to select a mascot for their intramural basketball team, they got together and struck back at the man. Struck hard. These enterprising young minds came up with the concept of a white guy, complete with a suit, a tie, a briefcase and a half-cocked grin. They called themselves The Fighting Whities.² Their motto, “Everythang’s gonna be all white!”³ But they didn’t stop there. The students slapped their white man logo onto t-shirts and other products like mugs and buttons. They were the talk of campus, not to mention the nation. How’s that for turning the tables on the racists out there?

Now, you’d think that whitie would have sat down and pondered this turn of events—said to himself, Gee, it doesn’t feel so great being somebody’s lousy mascot. I feel humiliated. Now I understand what it’s like to be degraded and dehumanized. Gosh, I’d better do something about it. I know: I’ll apologize to all of my minority friends for the years my race has put others down, and then I’ll dedicate myself to… I’m going to stop here. You know darn well that didn’t happen. I know darn well that didn’t happen. I know first-hand, because I put the Fighting Whities logo and product line up on a Power Point every semester, and show it to my students, the vast majority of whom are white. You know what they do? They laugh. That’s right, they laugh. They’re anything but offended or humiliated; in fact, they love the concept of Hugh Beaumont stirring up excitement in a gym on a Friday night. A few of my students can’t wait to get home to order a t-shirt or a mug. In fact, so many whites felt this way back in 2002 that the Northern Colorado students were able to raise over $100,000, most of which they donated straight to the cause of minority scholarships. While it was nice to raise a little cash for those less fortunate (a small victory in itself, I suppose), their main objective failed—and that objective was to incense whites. Get them to hit the airwaves in order to stop this Fighting Whites nonsense. That simply did not happen.

Similarly, if Kennedy thinks that, by liberally using the N-word in comedy and in rap, blacks will help their poor white counterparts realize the full-sting of the word, he needs to pause, gaze out at The Charles and the John Hancock Building and take a deep breath. Truth of the matter is millions of whites are actually amused by the word n-gga, which sounds eerily similar to its er-ending cousin, thus making it difficult to differentiate between the two when they’re verbalized. Whites turn out in droves to enjoy black comedy routines that are replete with the word. They flock to black movies, and laugh as the characters liberally use this word. And whites drive CD sales, and are the champions of the mobile device download. (One estimate has 70% of rap being downloaded by whites)⁴. I put it to Kennedy that the N-word is having only a marginal effect on the white community. They’re not offended and, for heaven’s sake, many certainly do not feel satirized by it. If they did, rap music sales would be in the toilet, and these so-called artists and musicians would have to try their hands at jazz or country-western. As it turns out, whites continue to listen to rap at a very healthy clip, which has inspired the careers of several white rappers, such as Eminem, who is arguably one of the most successful rappers of them all.

Rather than attempting to satirize the racists of the world, I’d invite Professor Kennedy to have a conversation with Beni Dakar of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who wrote the following observation concerning this word on November 27, 2006: “We [African Americans] cringe and become outraged when any white or non-black person uses the demeaning word [n-word]. Yet even those of us who dislike the word and never utter the n-word ourselves have an eerie tolerance and acceptance when African-Americans refer to each other this way.” Maybe Dakar wasn’t making a specific reference to Kennedy, but she could have been. No matter which way you look at the issue, this kind of internal dialogue among African Americans certainly couldn’t hurt an already desperate situation.

Some, I’m sure, will accuse me of sounding like another know-it-all, self-righteous white man who doesn’t understand the African-American culture. Maybe so, but I do have a pretty firm grasp on the term decency. So let me say this: the issue of blacks using the N-word in such an uninhibited manner is not representative of all African Americans. Let’s at least agree on that. This culture, which we celebrate during the month of February, is too big, too diverse, has come too far and is too rich in goodness to be defined exclusively by this issue. You can, however, accuse me of not understanding the N-word-using subgroup of the black culture that is too often defended (actively or tacitly) by black leaders—and, yes, that includes Professor Kennedy, in my humble opinion. That I’ll admit to. Moreover, I don’t understand the violent and lewd lyrics in rap, which are often replete with the N-word. Of course, I don’t understand the depraved racists in my own culture, who have repeatedly spewed forth this word in its purest, most evil form. But if you’re not satisfied with my limited and biased insight, just listen to Bill Cosby as he addresses a group of black leaders:

Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry (kids)gets out of school at 2:30 every day. It’s cursing and calling each other n——- as they’re walking up and down the street…They think they’re hip. They can’t read; they can’t write. They’re laughing and giggling and they’re going nowhere…I can’t even talk the way these people talk, ‘Why you ain’t,’ ‘Where you is’…and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. ⁵

Cosby points out that the vile slurs used by racists, who once lynched blacks, are now favorites among many black adults, teens and even children:

When you put on a record and that record is yelling ‘n——- this and n——- that’ and you’ve got your little six-year-old, seven-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car, those children hear that. ⁶

Does Cosby care that whites will use his words in order to prove their point? “Let them (whites) talk,” he barked at the end of his lecture.

Thomas Chatterton Williams, of The Washington Post, chimes in on the subject of the black culture; his frustration is summarized in The Week’s June 8, 2007 issue:

Most Americans now think “black culture” and “hip-hop culture” are the same thing. But that’s not true…Hip-hop culture is a denial of that history (black history); it evolved in the streets, as a “cool pose” by young, uneducated black men filled with anger, violent impulses, and misogyny. Over the last two decades, that pose has come to define blackness; for middle black teens, “keeping it real” means imitating thuggish hip-hop stars, while doing well in school and treating people respectfully are “acting white.” It’s crazy, really: Of all America’s ethnic and racial cultures, only blacks have adopted the values of the lowest rung on their hierarchy. A middle-class Chinese kid growing up in the suburbs, for example, would never even consider dressing and acting like a thuggish Chinese heroin dealer on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Black culture is deeply troubled, and until it is “effectively disentangled from the python grip of hip-hop, and by extension the street, we are not going to see any real progress.” ⁷

I suppose it would be nothing more than a cheap cliché to say that the evening of November 17, 2006 began like so many before for Comedian Michael Richards, as he grabbed the microphone and then the stage at The Laugh Factory out in West Hollywood. Unlike his days on the set of Seinfeld, Richards would have no prepared script, nor would the audience be the compliant, amiable studio crowd in front of which he’d grown accustomed to performing all those years. But that was okay; Richards was prepared for anything. His impromptu, Freudian, free-associating monologues were a perfect antidote for the unpredictability of the rowdy, talkative, less-than-sober L.A. crowds that floated in from Sunset Boulevard.

The performance was clearly not his best. As he vacillated, and his aimless pacing intensified, Richards glared at the audience through the bright lights. Something was clearly bugging him. Comedians, after all, can be touchy and sensitive, their fragile egos forever on the defensive. He pointed to a group of minorities in the upper seats, making a snide remark about how loud they had become.⁸ The comment touched off a firestorm that caught the comedian by surprise. They started to be more than just loud; the celebrity-jaded crowd began to heckle—suggesting Richards was washed-up, a has-been, a guy unable to achieve much of anything since his days on Seinfeld. Richards roared, “Shut up! Fifty years ago we’d have had you dangling upside down with an [expletive] fork shoved up your _ss!”⁹ He hurled the N-word a total of six times. One black man took offense and called the comedian a “cracker” and an “[expletive] white boy.” People were stunned. They started leaving. Management wasn’t sure just what to do. Richards continued to pace until he finally left the stage altogether.

A few days later, at Jerry Seinfeld’s urging, Richards agreed to appear, via satellite, on The DavidLetterman Show. The subdued comedian apologized for his behavior at the Laugh Factory. He later sought forgiveness from Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, even appearing on the former’s radio talk show. It was there that Richards issued additional mea culpas.

But what gave Richards the inkling that he could use the N-word to begin with? What made him think that people, even the hardened crowd at The Factory, would find the word funny—especially coming from the mouth of a white comedian? Could it have been the fact that Richards had seen many black comedians fling the word around like it was a Frisbee—Chris Rock (Niggas vs. Black People, 1997) being one of them? Had he seen the movie, Trespass, where inner-city blacks go on a treasure hunt and repeatedly use N— to refer to one another? Or had he kicked back on the Santa Monica Pier and listened to the filth pouring out of black artists’ mouths: Nigga What, Nigga Who (Jay Z., 1999), Nigga, Please (Old Dirty Bastard, 1999), For All My Niggas and Bitches (Snoop Dogg, 2001) or maybe even Real Nigga Roll Call (Lil’ Jon & The East Side Boys, 2004). Was he imitating them? Did Richards think this was now a legitimate way of entertaining the masses, particularly whites who, back in the day, purchased more of these CDs and download more Rap than anyone? Did Richards just want in on the action, in on this particular comedic trend? So why did Richards ask for forgiveness on Letterman and then seek divine pardon with Jackson and Sharpton? Had Jay Z, Snoop, Bastard or Lil’ Jon ever sought such forgiveness for their use of N—? And had The Factory incident sobered America to the reality of the N-word, thus slowing down the rate at which explicit/hate rap was being churned out of New York and Los Angeles? Questions, questions and more questions. Certainly more questions than answers, to be sure, although I would say that 100 Years (Plies, 2007), Hood Nigga (Gorilla Zoe, 2007), as well as a host of other albums—Deeper than Rap, Who Wanna Rap, Slaughterhouse, Attention Deficit and Skinny Jeanz and a Mic would suggest otherwise. The rate had not slowed. It had maintained its torrid pace, even accelerated.

In March of 2012, and then, again, in April of that year, two white CNN reporters used the N-word on the air as they read quotes during a newscast. The backlash was swift. Millions of viewers cringed at the sound of the word. Their blunders were replayed again and again on YouTube. The network was mortified and had to issue two, separate public apologies.

A school district in Texas joined the national hysteria by removing Huck Finn from its curriculum. “We are here today,” said Superintendent Stephen Waddell, “to say we will not tolerate the N-word being used by any educator anywhere in any school district throughout our region or the state of Texas.”¹⁰

I have no problem with that, but is it wise to eliminate a classic like Huck Finn from the curriculum? Was Twain a racist? Was his intent behind the genius of Huck Finn motivated by bigotry? What Waddell should have said is this: We will not tolerate use of the N-word by any educator, nor will we tolerate the use of this disgusting word by students. Regardless of ethnic origin. Regardless of their familiarity with one another. Regardless of whether or not they are joking around with each other or using the word to express camaraderie. And we will not tolerate the word spewing from the innards of students’ IPODS, MP3 players or mobile devices.

In swooped Whoopi Goldberg to weigh in on the issue. From the days of the Michael Richards flap, and then, again, after the CNN debacle, the black comedienne has always asserted there are other derogatory terms that concern her more than the N-word, one of them being the S-word— Stupid. Furthermore, Goldberg has consistently called for the unmitigated and undiluted use of the N-word—even by reporters and newscasters, claiming that each time we replace nigger with the N-word, we sanitize it, deny the role it has played in our culture and in our history as a nation. “They’ve tried to fix Roots. They’ve taken it out of books. This idea that taking it out makes it somehow better is ridiculous. It’s part of the culture. Let us speak on it and say this is what it is,” said Goldberg. I’m not crystal clear on whether the comedienne advocates N—’s unlimited use by everyone, including black entertainers, but I do feel her frustration with narrow-minded groups that want to excise the term from literature. And, believe me, Whoopi and I don’t agree on very much.

Actor Samuel L. Jackson recommitted himself to using the offensive word a few years back. “I use the word ‘n-gger’ every day, especially when I’m with my friends,” he boasts. “We refer to each other that way; it’s part of our culture. I grew up with that word, so I understand when people are using it the wrong way, and I understand when they’re just using it.”¹¹ Jackson goes on to say that white people may think they can say the word, but they can’t. When whitie says the word, “it’s like fingernails on a blackboard to black people.” Agreeing wholeheartedly with Jackson is Snoop Dogg. “I’m a n-gga,” says the rapper, “so I’m not gonna ever be treated fair. There will always be some new n-ggas coming out, gang-banging, not giving a damn, just living their life, because that’s what America breeds. We’re bred to do that sh-t, so you can’t get mad at us. You gotta get mad at the system.”¹²

Believe it or not, there appears to be some political movement on the issue. After the Richards flap Paul Mooney, a black comedian; Jessie Jackson, and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called for a moratorium on the N-word—even among blacks. In my opinion, these individuals had the moral fortitude (and I don’t often say this about Jesse Jackson) to do what Samuel L. Jackson, Snoop and others like them would not. Mooney has had no qualms about using the N-word in previous foul-mouthed routines. He’s a friend of Richards, but when he heard what came out of the comedian’s mouth he said it “freaked me out and filled me with disgust.”¹³ Mooney guessed that Richards was trying, at least in part, to imitate what many of us have heard from the mouths of black comedians and black rappers. “He had heard it in rap and all that. I’m part of the problem. I contributed to it, yes.” Mooney added, “I was having a romance with the word, and I was married to it.” And now? “I’m free of it. I won’t be using that word onstage, and I won’t be using the B-word. We’re asking the rappers and all the people on Earth to stop using the word.”¹⁴

Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons has come forward and asked that the recording and broadcast industry ban three racial and sexist epithets: n-, b—ch and ho. “We recommend (they’re) always out,” said Simmons. “This is the first step. It’s a clear message and a consistency that we want the industry to accept for more corporate social responsibility.”¹⁵ Simmons plea, by the way, immediately followed the remarks of radio personality Don Imus when he called the young women playing basketball for Rutgers University “nappy-headed ho’s.”

Several cities and municipalities, across the country, have passed non-binding but eye-opening resolutions to ban the word’s use—New York City being one of the latest. But will these gestures take hold? Hip-hop artist Kurtis Blow Walker wants African Americans to stop using the word so “we can elevate our minds to a better future.” Says City Councilman Albert Vann: “I forgive young people who do not know their history, and I blame myself and my generation for not preparing you. But today we are going to know our history. We are not going to refer to ourselves by anything negative, the way the slave master referred to black people, using the n-word.”¹⁶

At their July 2007 annual convention, The NAACP buried the N-word in a mock funeral held in Detroit. Two Percheron stallions pulled a caisson atop which rested a pine box draped with a bouquet of fake black roses. “Today,” announced Detroit’s mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, “we’re not just burying the N-word; we’re taking it out of our spirit. We gather burying all the things that go with the N-word. We have to bury the ‘pimps’ and the ‘ho’s’ that go with it. Die N-word, and we don’t want to see you ‘round here no more.”¹⁷ Added NAACP chairman, Julian Bond, “While we are happy to have sent a certain radio cowboy back to his ranch (Radio Shock Jock Don Imus, after his “nappy-headed ho’s” comment), we ought to hold ourselves to the same standard. If he (Imus) can’t refer to our women as ‘Hos’, then we shouldn’t either. And it is not a violation of the First Amendment not to use the ‘N’ word.”¹⁸

Unfortunately these efforts will be a tough sell for some, like Samuel L. Jackson, who are still addicted to the n-word. “We grew up saying it and it’s what I say all the time,” said one young African American woman. “It’s (the New York City Resolution) not going to stop anybody from saying it. Damon Wayans of the sitcom “My Wife and Kids” once tried to patent the N-word for a line of clothing. The effort failed. Can you imagine your five-year-old running around the house with n——- stitched prominently across his chest? Or on his back side? Are our minds, as the saying goes, so open that our brains have fallen out?

Apparently a rapper called Nas happily spilled his brains on the sidewalk outside the 2008 Grammys. He showed up with N- printed across the front of his shirt. That’s okay, because (1) he was probably just trying to promote his new album, N-, and (2) he’s black—a card-carrying member of that club that has exclusive proprietary rights to the word.

In the end, we have a Harvard prof who thinks we can satirize racists by using the N-word. The Fighting Whites experiment seems to have blunted that notion, however. Several experts have weighed in on the subject: journalists from The Atlanta Constitution as well as The Washington Post, and entertainer Bill Cosby. Michael Richards showed us all how awful N— sounds when it’s spoken by a white person, and that was confirmed by the case of the two reporters working for CNN. One black comedienne wants the word to be spoken in its purest form, lest we dilute its true meaning, while at least one school district has banned Twain’s Huck Finn for its use of the word. Two other entertainers, Samuel L. Jackson and Snoop Dogg, have reaffirmed their devotion to using N—, while the NAACP buried the word, once and for all, in a mock funeral held in Detroit. And don’t forget the one teacher (that would be me) who found out what can happen when he makes reference of the word in his classroom.

Confusion, confusion and still more confusion. Certainly more confusion than clarity.

And reason #28 as to why were now a minute closer to midnight.