The "N" Word Topic Again

[JACKSONC@wood.army.mil]

My little brother sent me this article.  Interesting reading.  What do you 
think about the article.

cj

>> It's Defined Now Defy It
>> 
>> 	By Courtland Milloy
>> 
>> Wednesday, October 15, 1997; Page B01
>> The Washington Post 
>> 
>> A computer operator in Ypsilanti, Mich., recently discovered that the  
"n" word -- that's n-i-g-g-e-r -- is actually in the dictionary. And  she  
wants it out.
>> 
>> Delphine Abraham, who is black, has launched a petition drive to get the 
racial epithet removed from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.  She's 
getting lots of support, too, from the curator of the Museum of  African 
American History in Flint, Mich., along with more than 2,000  others who 
have signed the petition. 

>> But count me out. I'm tired of black people getting upset when white  
people do something to us but then go around grinning and skinning when  
the insults and abuse come from our own.
 
>> How on earth can any black person get upset because the word "nigger"  
is in the dictionary? Every time you turn on the television, go to the 
movies or listen to rap music on the radio, there is some black person  
screaming it.
>> 
>> An especially common usage is the expression of disbelief -- "Niggah, 
please" -- which some black comedians can't seem to say without sending 
spittle flying out into their laughing black audiences. You think  white 
people aren't aware of this pervasive lack of self-respect? (Can you feel 
the spittle in your face?)
>> 
>> The problem that Abraham and others have with "nigger" being in the 
dictionary is the definition, which is: "a black person -- usually taken to 
be offensive."
>> 
>> Says Abraham, "I can't believe that in 1997, you can look up `nigger' in 
the dictionary, and it says a black person."
>> 
>> And just who else would people be talking about when they use the word?
>> 
>> The dictionary also includes "kike" and employs a similar style of 
defining it: "a Jew: a vulgar term of hostility and contempt." The word 
"wop" also is there. It means "an Italian or person of Italian
>> descent:   an offensive term of hostility and contempt."
>> 
>> The difference is that you don't hear Jews running around calling each 
other "kikes" or see Italians out on the street publicly degrading 
themselves.
>> 
>> Black people use the "n" word everywhere, from their homes to their 
jobs. Just the other day I heard a girl introduce a boy to her friends with,
 "This is my niggah."
>> 
>> Some will say that such usage is an attempt by African Americans to 
claim the word as their own, thus freeing themselves from its historic 
ugliness -- the same as we did with the word "black," for example. But that 
is a dangerous rationalization.
>> 
>> It's not a coincidence that the public expression of the "n" word has 
reached its greatest popularity among blacks at a time when internalized 
oppression -- our subconscious enemy within -- has become the greatest 
threat to black America.
>> 
>> The most recent opinion polls on racial attitudes show that nearly one 
out of every three blacks now holds views about other blacks that are 
similar to the views held by racist whites: that blacks are dumber and more 
dangerous than any other group.
>> 
>> Whites no longer need to call us names. We have been conditioned to do 
it to ourselves, and then go a step further by acting the part. The same 
black girls who think of "my niggah" as a term of endearment are the same 
ones getting abused and beaten up by those black men at a terrifying rate.
>> 
>> Blacks may think it's an inside joke when they say of a black 
entrepreneur, "I don't trust that nigger," but the refusal of black people 
to do business with their own has made us the laughingstock of 
>> this capitalistic free world. Only when a black person says, "I'll kill  
that niggah," does it seem that he really means business.
>> 
>> Which brings us to the black gangsta rappers. Their self-hating and  
misogynistic lyrics are being mimicked by black children like there is no 
tomorrow, which there may not be given the unprecedented rate of black 
self-destruction that is underway.
>> 
>> You'd think African Americans would be doing some serious  
soul-searching and self-policing. Instead, our continuing preoccupation 
with what the white man thinks about us gets us riled up more than what we 
think of  ourselves.
>> 
>> Thousands of angry black people have contacted Merriam-Webster after its 
definition of "nigger" was mentioned in the September issue of Emerge 
magazine. Meanwhile, blacks have no problem with the use of the "n" word  
on television and the radio and in the movies -- which have far larger  
audiences than your average dictionary.
>> 
>> Instead of censoring the "n" word, I suggest that Merriam-Webster  
expand on it -- add five or six examples of what a nigger really is: 1) a 
fiction, a creation of the white man, a black who has come to believe the 
worst about him or herself and other black people; 2) a self-loathing creep 
conditioned to believe that the white man's ice is colder and that the 
white man's coal burns hotter; 3) one who is
>> afraid of white people, a black who buck-dances and brown-noses his way 
to acceptance in white America; 4) awestruck by white women, a black man 
who thinks black women are not as beautiful; 5) one who uses white racism 
to excuse black irresponsibility; 6) blacks who kill other blacks at the 
drop of a hat.
>> 
>> At this point, a mass movement against Merriam-Webster strikes me as 
futile. Let's say the "n" word gets cut from the book. How, then, do you 
get it out of the hearts and minds of black people?
>> 
>> I say just accept that the "n" word exists and resolve that the best way 
to get rid of it is to stop acting like one......................


"  When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was 
difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I  
found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I  
couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my  family. 
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is  myself, and 
suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have  made 
an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I 
could indeed have changed the world."
>> 
>>  -- An Unknown Monk 1100 A.D.
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