I mean, now that it was out there, and coming from the mouth of a white man often accused of being racist by black folks, surely it would be OK, for black folks to start throwing it around freely without fear of repercussion. Now all of a sudden, black folks would be confronted with the dilemma of whether to drop the "er" at the end of the word, and replace it with an "a" was my thought. Gotta take the sting out of the word; nobody else can do that better than black folks; we're post-racial, right?
But then in steps Dr. Laura Schlessinger like gravity to pull my hopeful-but-deluded-nigger-ass back down to earth. Surely you know the story by now. Black caller married to a white man calls the white and ultra conservative version of Dr. Phil with a vagina, seeking advice on a racial issue. A call which became a train-wreck with the good doctor using the word nigger faster than the speed of a locomotive in six minutes.
So tell us how you felt about that RiPPa!
I'll be honest and not NAACP you, her using the word didn't offend me one bit. Actually, after I first heard the audio I thought... eh, it could have been worse - she could have called Jade (the lady who called in) a nigger, but she didn't. She used it in a specific context so as to make a point. Not a smart move, but I understood what she was saying. However, what totally fucked up my world was when she used the term "Black Think" as she sermonized the caller.
It pissed me off because as Tim Wise said in the above video, as a white person, it ain't y'alls muthafuckin place to tell black people how to "act" when it comes to the use of the word nigger [see his discussion with Don Lemon via CNN]. As a white person there's no way you can rationalize your use of the word, so as to not come off as racist as people may perceive you to be. But I suppose that's more of that "White Privilege" thing that all non-minorities enjoy. Yep, it's a "white thing" that my black ass has come to understand all too well (ain't it a bitch that niggers aren't prevented from reading books like they used to be?).
How the fuck you gonna talk about "Black Think" when most (if not all) of your opinions of black people are ill-formed, and based on a mostly stereotypical view of said black people? Yeah, see, there's no way as a white person you can accurately discuss race and "black think", when you fail to realize or acknowledge just how fucking privileged you are within the construct of race. But yet I'm supposed to "get over" slavery, Jim Crow, and all that other bullshit and live in a modern society when you don't allow me to, by choosing to lecture me on using the word nigger.
Fuck you and your rules; how's that for black think Dr. Laura?
See, by not embracing your inner Cracker, you're forced to say stupid shit like "that white guilt shit is dead, there's a black president now," as Dr. Laura alluded, and as I was told by an older white gentleman in a recent conversation discussing the subject of Dr. Laura's rant. A conversation where the same gentleman displayed the most superior level of "White Think" I've seen in a long time when he said to me: "The only black leaders with intelligence in America is Barack Obama, Bill Cosby, and Usher."
Yes... that Usher... uh-huh, as in Usher Raymond...
So yeah, that's the problem with Dr. Laura and people like her (figure out just what I mean by "people like her"), is that they haven't, or refuse to embrace their inner Cracker. If they did, there would be no debate about the "rules" associated with usage of the word nigger, or more importantly, just how people of color suffer at the hands of institutionalized racism to this very day. White folks, to embrace your inner Cracker, just as many of us black folks have embraced our inner Nigger, is a good thing, and you should consider it.
Maybe then and only then you'll understand...
Hell, the term "Yankee" used to be a pejorative too.
