Posted on 02/08/2021 11:51:49 AM PST by billorites
On what Black History Month and the racial reckoning mean at the New York Times …
Over the past week, the Times’ crossword puzzles have included many clues having to do with black culture and issues, and in fact have been by black constructors. A fine gesture for Black History Month.
But then the other night we learned that longtime reporter Donald McNeil, who has done groundbreaking work on the pandemic, has been fired, at 67. His sin was that on an NYT-sponsored educational trip with teenagers, he used the N-word in referring to it (as opposed to actually using the word).
Inevitably, in response to outcry over how needlessly punitive this is, his inquisitors and defenders will note that he is documented to have said some other things that suggest that he is not completely on board with what a certain educated orthodoxy considers the proper positions on race, and that he was reputed to have treated some staffers in a discriminatory way. However, if the complaints were only these, it is reasonable to suppose that he would still have his job. It was the N-word thing that pushed things over the edge, and is the focus of the letter signed by 150 staffers demanding, in effect, his head on a pole.
That is, for people like this, the N-word has gone from being a slur to having, in its mere shape and sound, a totemic taboo status directly akin to how Harry Potter characters process the name Voldemort and theatre people maintain a pox on saying “Macbeth” inside a theatre. The letter roasts McNeil for “us[ing] language that is offensive and unacceptable,” implying a string of language, a whole point or series thereof, something like a stream, a stretch – “language.” But no: they are referring to his referring to a single word.
The kinds of people who got McNeil fired think of this new obsessive policing of the N-word as a kind of strength. Their idea is “We are offended by this word, we demand that you don’t use it, and if you do use it, we are going to make sure you lose your job.” But the analogy is off here. This would be strength if the issue were the vote, or employment. Here, people are demanding the right to exhibit performative delicacy, and being abetted in it by non-black fellow travellers.
One way we know that this pox on even uttering the N-word to refer to it is that it was not the common consensus quite recently. As late as the 1990s I did a radio interview about the N-word where it was considered ordinary to utter the word to refer to it, by blacks and whites. I have in my memory endless casual sentences uttered by thoroughly enlightened, sensitive white people from the 1970s through to 2010 where they used the word to refer to it, with no one batting an eye because the difference between use and reference is so blindingly obvious. One thing I have been doing to get through the pandemic is to watch my way through the whole run of The Jeffersons (11 seasons – whew!), and in one episode white Tom objects to black George always calling him honky by asking “Suppose I called you nigger?” That was fine then, but would qualify as a Very Special Episode today on Blackish. The only difference is that what was a nasty slur in 1977 is today also treated as a taboo.
Even Times executive editor Dean Baquet understands this, one can tell. He at first retained McNeil after an apology, but has now caved to this body of ever-aggrieved Times workers. I guess after they managed to hunt out James Bennet, Bari Weiss and now McNeil, Baquet worries that he might be next. Or maybe it’s a matter of racial loyalty to him – it is not mine to know.
In any case, my own observation of this sort of thing, and conversations now and then with people who engage in it, is that the people hunting down McNeil are swelling with a certain pride in claiming that “We decide what we will tolerate,” as if this constitutes what black nationalists would term “self-determination.” But the issue is whether what is being determined for the self is good for the self in question.
Upon that, two matters require address. One is that it is only a certain mob who are making this “determination.” The idea that it is inherent to black American culture to fly to pieces at hearing the N-word used in reference is implausible at best, and slanderous at worst.
But the second and more important is that insisting on this taboo makes it look like black people are numb to the difference between usage and reference, vague on the notion of meta, given to overgeneralization rather than to making distinctions.
To wit, to get McNeil fired for using the N-word to refer to it makes black people look dumb. And not just to the Twitter trollers who will be nasty enough to actually write it down. Non-black people are thinking it nationwide and keeping it to themselves. Frankly, the illogic in this approach to the N-word is so obvious to anyone who does make distinctions that the only question is why people would not look on and guiltily wonder whether the idea that black people are less intellectually gifted is true.
Now, what people are more likely to actually say, which also gets around having to think about intelligence issues, is that the mob here is exerting their power – i.e. that they are just mean. I don’t think so – that’s too easy, and in a way as psychologically implausible as not understanding the difference between usage and reference. How many people working in those cubicles at the Times building are mean?
The reason a black person engages in this kind of inquisition is not ill-will, and it isn’t stupidity. It’s insecurity. Slavery and Jim Crow have many legacies, and one is on black psychology. People who really like themselves can’t be destroyed by someone referring to a word, even a word that has been used against them. If the blackest thing you can do is get someone canned for referring to a slur, we see that the frame of mind that famously led black kids to choose white dolls in the 1950s experiment lives on.
It’s pretty simple – if you are genuinely proud, then you spontaneously recoil from the idea that some stuff somebody says in passing can hurt you. You’d be embarrassed to engage in the transaction. If you really like yourself, it takes a hell of a lot more than some cranky stuff a Donald McNeil says one day to ruin your day, or even affect it in the slightest. And if you doubt me on that because I’m not a psychologist, I beseech you simply to seek out a psychologist and ask one.
And yet it’s “contrarian” black writers like me who are supposed to be self-hating.
I always figured that the analogy is to what I grew up with.
I’m an Irishman. Another Irishman can call me a ‘mick’; a non Irishman might not like the reaction. I can make Irish jokes and I can be offended by stereotypes if Irishmen. Anyone who doesn’t like that had best be ready to resort to fists, feet, or lawyer relatives.
The Italians I know can call each other ‘Pisano’ and other terms that I would be a complete idiot (and an idiot who might soon get and deeply deserve an ass kicking); they can make mafia jokes and such that I’d be at best a tacky jerk to make.
Same thing with Blacks. The only white folks who are offended or annoyed that they can use the N-word in talk or song while white folks get a world of grief for doing so are the same racist A-holes who wish or want to use the N-word themselves. Anybody who’s bothered by the two different sets of rules needs to look in a mirror and make sure their sheets are on nice and neat.
N words commit 50% of all the murders and robberies in America. It’s verifiable. Just sayin’.
“language that is offensive and unacceptable,” It doesn’t state that it depends on who is saying it. It is unconditional. Therefore, all the rappers and street folk who say it need to get fired and canceled.
This word is a trap for Whitey. The word is used a lot by the folk who pretend to be offended by the word. The reality is that they use the word defiantly in front of Whitey, daring him to say it.
The end goal is to wipe out all Whiteys. Even then they will blame all their failures on all the dead Whiteys.
The whole idea that lives are ruined and careers are canceled over the n-word is unbelievable.
But the fact a Slimes reporter was eaten by his own pet alligators?
Works for me.
I’m confused. He didn’t call anyone a nigerian?
He just said something like “don’t call someone a nigerian, that’s rude?”
I fail to see the problem.
Are blacks like Voldemort now?
Reminds me of the niggardly affair in DC. Although, when they discovered the white manager who offended was gay, he was not fired but transferred.
When they thought he was straight, they fired him.
Everyone should have their kids ask their teachers what exactly this N word is. Best to do it on one of those wonderful remote classrooms so you can record.
my group of friends stop saying n word back in the early 80s we replaced it with nigel as in nigel rig it
The N-word has for a long time been considered the ultimate derogatory term, but “Hick”, “Redneck”, and “Hillbilly” are still just fine with the left, even on national television.
Well, you just might be a Nigel...
If you stiff your waiter in one African country, you might be:
NIGGARDLY in NIGER!
(jeez everyone, lighten up!)
I’ve often said the better comparison of whites using the n-word is the countless times blacks use the h-word or c-word with nobody going crazy over it. Whatever the rules of etiquette are, they apply to everybody equally..
N worders commit 50% of all the murders and robberies in America. It’s verifiable. Just sayin’.
Let’s see . . .
* 70% of unwed babies;
* by far, the largest number of murdered babies in abortuaries;
* affirmative action;
* subprime loans to buy homes;
* billions in food stamps;
* disproportional amount of incarcerated N people compared to the rest of the American population
* extremely high neighborhood crime rates nationally;
* and we even gave them roads formerly named for war heroes to MLK named streets (here in Cleveland, Liberty Blvd. was renamed MLK Blvd), which, ironically, let the average traveler know what streets to not go down or get near,
* two Black History months (MLK shoved down our throats in January and “Black History” month in February), where they totally ignore the history of the Black slave traders way back then and even today;
* and 660,000 deaths in the Civil War to free the Ns
* and they still want reparations.
* Still waiting for a single “Thank You” America monument to go into Gettysburg.
Judging from his song lyrics Weeknd the black fellow who entertained at this years Super Bowl is exempt from all of this.
Lyrics from Weeknds Ebony with edits
“I think I’ve finally fell in love now
Her name is Tammy, she got hella bitches
She let me f–k ’em while my n—-s film it …
Man, I love my baby, man, I love my baby
Trust me, trust me, I love my baby
Man, I love my baby, man, I love my baby, trust me, trust me. …
Girl go ’head and show me how you go down
And I feel my whole body peakin’
And I’m f—in’ anybody with they legs wide
Got me higher than a n—a from the West Side
And then there’s the word of common sense which used to help govern how we lived - sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me........
The term is either offensive or it's not. It must not be offensive because I hear it in almost every rap "song".
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