First of all...fuck Michael Richards...for apologizing!
Mr. Richards, it is, after all, I who should apologize to you. You see, I had no idea that you, Michael Richards -- the legendary Kramer -- frequented my humble little blog. I'd been warned by many that my use of the word "nigga" would create this situation, that it would place the word in the American lexicon, that I would force the legions of White people who blindly follow me and repeat my teachings across the globe to say things they wouldn't otherwise say. But I never really believed that I was this influential, this powerful. Perhaps if I'd considered your inability to maintain some level of human decency-- even in a comedy club, even when being (gasp!) heckled -- I would have realized that I was pulling the pin on the grenade that you threw at your audience.
Some readers may need to be caught up, Mr. Richards. Excuse me for a moment.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, this is some video from Mr. Richards' now infamous performance at The Laugh Factory (And for those of you who can't view the video -- especially those naughty ones who consume Musings on company time -- I'll give you the Cliff's Notes. Picture Cosmo Kramer, in response to being heckled, trying to set the world record for the use of the word nigger in a two minute span and throwing in a blatant lynching reference for shits and giggles.):
7 Comments:
Commenter's note: After rereading this, I realized that, not only does it go on forever, but it starts out on a tangent, and only gets worse from there.
Sorry.
I defend myself against those who would in any way excuse the rapist for calling the woman he rapes a "bitch," simply because she may call her girlfriends "bitches" when they're talking shit on the phone.
*nodding enthusiastically*
Oh yeah, that's exactly where I was going with that, right before I got to where you printed it.
I just had this debate at school (cause that's what I do) while I was procrastinating over a pot of coffee and four or five smokes (cause that's also what I do.)
A friend had read an article which stated that "bitch" was the worst insult used against women. My cohort figured that as far as insults go, "bitch" is pretty fucking tame by today's standards. But no, said I, it's not the word as much as the meaning behind it. Call a woman a cunt, and you're merely throwing out a baseless insult for degredation's sake. Call her a bitch, and you're insinuating that she's uppity, impolite, and simply doesn't know her place. Basically, she's acting like a man, and she should bloody well know better.
It's not the word, be it "bitch" or "nigger", but the historical context behind it. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your traditional bigotry will most certainly cost me a premotion or three.
Therefore reclaiming the word is simply taking a bite out of that history, and laying claims to your right to not let people get away with refusing to acknowledge that it happened, it exists, and if whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, than dammit, feel free to skip Wednesdays at the gym.
On the other hand (but not really), I might fight to the death for reclaimed words, but I just got smacked in the face with how they can unintentionally hurt unknown others yesterday.
See, I'm a stalker. And by "stalker", I mean: I have a crush (yes, a crush, and to my coffee dealer's daughter, I still say adults can have crushes, and you're simply too young to have a bloody clue what you're talking about) on a guy at school. And I check him out when he can't see me, and he checks me out when I can't see him, and when we both accidentally check each other out at the same time, we blush, and run.
And I say I'm stalking him. I know that there's women out there who don't buy into using "stalking" loosely, and would take offense to the term. But heck, my number's unlisted, and I don't answer the phone if I don't recognize that call display, and I go sleepless nights if that unknown number has an Ontario area code. Or Alberta. Or non-Lower Mainland BC. (That'd be over 50% of the population of Canada that freaks me out when they phone, for your information). And then I get up in the middle of the night and plug *that* name into every phone directory available online in the hopes of finding out where *he* is and confirming that *that* number is not, in fact, his.
So anyway, if I wanna call myself a stalker in jest, I'm gonna do it. And true, maybe "stalker" isn't a reclaimed word as much as it is black humour, but if there's anything I've learned it's that humour is just a means of seeing the absurdity of a situation, and sometimes we need to see that absurdity, or we start to think that everything is okay, and that's just the way it is, and we can't go believing that shit, now can we?
But...
I have set territory in my school, and one of the people who's invited into my territory is a security guard, and one of the 10,000 students at my school overheard me and that security guard discussing any advances I may have made in my stalking adventures.
And that one student panicked, thinking that I was talking to security about the fact that I thought that student was stalking me.
Why? I don't know who he is. He's far enough out of my territory that I still can't place him, even with a description to go on. So he should have been far enough out of my territory not to have any concerns that, even if I had been talking about having a stalker rather than being a stalker, he wouldn't be likely to think it was him.
Except that this student enjoying the wonders that accompany being a new immigrant to a country. And with that comes the joys of going into a bar when your accent don't pan up, and walking down the street at night when your skin's the wrong colour, and it's to the level where he hears the word "stalker" in a conversation across the room, and thinks, "oh crap, they're talking about me."
(Fortunatly, he went to his prof about the situation, and fortunatly, his prof happened to be one of those people who frequents my territory, and was able to sort out the situation quickly.)
But it sure made me think. Everything was cleared up within hours of him talking to the prof, but he didn't talk to the prof until first thing in the morning. Which means that someone spent a night wondering if he was going to be thrown out of school/charged/arrested, simply because of my idea of a running joke happened to cross paths with his learned paranioa.
So damn, you just don't know who you may be hurting with your words, or how badly. I don't know where I'm going with that, but it's put some seeds of thought in my head. How many partial conversations do people hear? How many of them don't have that same context that I have to back it up? And how much damage can it cause?
I guess that's the thing. You can know your rights, and you can know when assholes are just wrong (read: Michael Richards), but so much of that shit is in between, and we don't always have the time to sort it out with everyone around us.
Scary. Words, they'll getcha every time.
Holy shit, that really does go on forever.
Seriously, very sorry.
As a white boy growing up in the south, I never met a nigga I didn't like. There are lots of niggers and trashy, seemlingly normal, white people that I have met and don't like. I, for one, will not characterize any one person based on one incident. It just ain't right. Don't blame Mr. Richards for being a dumbass. It comes natural to so many people.
As an Angry White Male Who Votes, I 100% AGREE with NMN! I am only surprised by Mr. Richards NOT saying "some of my best friends are Black". Typical Racist.
I visit NMN because he is NMN. I, being white, have next-to-no real context of my being being devined from my whiteness...NMN on the other hand, has grown to become NMN because of his blackness, and what some of my white "bruthas and sistahs" say, do and THINK while NMN is around. I, for one, am embarrased to be white when I hear/see people like Mr. Richards rant and bug like he did. There's no apology necessary, my white brother...the damage is done.
NMN...I'm sorry for Mr. Richards being Mr. Richards...not for what he said. In a strange, almost paradoxial way, It's good that he said what he said because it brings to the surface what all of the politically-correct pundits have been attempting to bury with their PC'ness. You can't put lipstick on a pig and make it anything other than a really pretty pig. Mr. Richards is a pig.
Thank you for listening, and for being NMN.
Angry White Man Who Votes
Racism and all the other isms are inherent in all of us to a greater or lesser degree. Where it gets ugly is when we dont acknowledge that we have a lot to learn about each other. We get defensive and angry because we see a part of ourselves that we hate. We dont want to be racist, but we are, so we project it out onto the other. The willful ignorance and the plain shamelessness of the vast majority of us is maddening. Anger is a lot easier to muster up and put into action than pain. God bless you sir.. and please dont stop writing.
Don't ever stop writing. You are a Walcott of race, writing your thoughts in grandiose style, leaving us humbled and thinking.
Thank you for writing. Don't ever stop.
New Millennium N-Word -
I say "N word" because I'm white and I don't feel comfortable using that word. Not because of what it means or what it represents, but because once it leaves my lips not one other word I say will be heard.
I don't spend a lot of my time talking about or thinking about race. Maybe that's wrong, but it makes me as much of a non-racist as one could be. I'd rather listen to Pink Floyd or Green Day or Bob Seger than rap, but it's got nothing to do with the color of the skin of the musicians. I'd rather watch "My Name is Early" than Damon Wayans sitcom that I don't even know the name of, but just because one makes me laugh and the other doesn't. I prefer to judge and be judged on the things I can control, but perhaps that's a luxury of my birth. If so, I don't take it for granted.
I support your use of the N-word (I refuse to say it or write it, even when quoting), not because of it's historical or cultural relevance. Not because I care about race, but because I care about words. Words are how we communicate with each other as human beings, and the politically correct policies of those afraid of offending have put a straightjacket on our ability to communicate with one another. I want people to mean what they say and say what they mean, even if that isn't what other people want to hear. It's hard to talk about the issues when everyone is too afraid of offending everyone else or being labeled the R-word. Personally, I keep my mouth shut and that's how I survive in my world, unfortunately depriving the world of my sharp wit and non-politically correct point of view.
My cousin adopted a baby from China and named her "Bo." She named her after the street where she was found in a garbage can, literally tossed away like yesterday's trash, merely because she wasn't a boy. Some people may have thought it was wrong to name her after the place where her biological parents abandoned her, but I think it will enable her to own that tragic part of her past. Her "real" parents, the ones who adopted her, are teaching her not to be afraid or ashamed of who she was or how she came to be. I applaud that embrace of a taboo subject, and I hope the name gives little Bo the freedom to talk about her past without fearing it.
So please, keep using the N-word, and maybe one day I'll be able to use it too...not because I will understand its context but because it's context will become irrelevant. Until then, I'll keep my mouth shut in public to avoid any labels, and I'll say potentially controversial things, like what I really think about affirmative action, only with the relative anonymity of the internet.
TK
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