THE N-WORD CONTROVERSY
Yesterday, I watched the Dr. Phil show. I don’t normally follow his show but since this episode was a discussion whether the N-word (for the non-American readers, the N-word refers to ‘Nigger’ and all its slang varieties, such as ‘Nigga’) should be used or not, I decided to actually see it. And oh boy, what a disappointment that was!
Yet again, there was a perfect example of how the African-Americans get away with murder. I was really looking forward to some substantial debate regarding the word itself, its usage and perhaps fresh ideas and opinions on why it’s ok for one black person to call another one the N-word but it’s so outrageous for a different race to do so. Instead, I watched a bunch of black people (excluding a few) throw racist remarks at the white audience for the most part of the show. It seems as if the horrible things that were done to the African-Americans in the past now justify their racism towards the white Americans.
I find something fundamentally wrong with this picture. You don’t mend one wrong with another. It only breeds more wrong…
The worst thing about this whole situation is the fact that nobody has enough guts to call it like it is. I can sort of understand the white people. I wouldn’t want my head bitten off just because I said aloud what everyone was thinking. But the question still remains unanswered…Why is everyone tiptoeing around this one race? After all, they were not the only ones treated so unfairly and unjustly by the Whites but you don’t see the Native Americans or Hispanics throwing nasty remarks at other races publicly just because of something that happened a long time ago. I assume there is still a lot of anger there but does it really justify acting that way?
Going back to the issue at hand, I really do not understand what the big deal about the N-word is. Words are words and they have meaning when people give them meaning. If you start taking words out of the dictionary, you should not stop with this one. I am sure that there are plenty of people who find other words as offensive, for instance the B-word, the F-word etc. but nobody proposes to take these out of usage…
Now, I don’t care what color you are but if it’s all right for one race to use the N-word, the same should be true for other races. It is as simple as that but then again, I’m European and as such my perceptions are different. I was brought up under the impression that we are all equal, no matter where you come from or what skin color you have… And I thought the same was true in the US (especially in the US—the land of freedom, right?). Or was I just dreaming?