I have no problem with Quentin Tarantino's use of the word nigger in his film, Django Unchained. As he has said, it's accurate usage for the historical period of the film. I also don't have a problem with his usage at the Golden Globes. It really is about context. He didn't call anyone a nigger; he made an observation about its usage.(Note: I'm breaking my own rule in this post in using the word nigger instead of the euphemism, n-word. I think that it's time for me to take away the power of the word in my life.)
However, I do take issue with the prevalent mythology that black people use the word nigger all the time. I'm black and 57 years old. I don't know all black people but I know a lot of black people. NONE of the black people that I know typically use nigger as a greeting or in general conversation.
The arguments that I read from white people who feel put upon because they can't use the word is that black rappers say it all the time! I don't know any rappers, but I don't count entertainers looking to make a dollar as the standard by which I live.
Black people do not run around greeting each other with the word as a rule. Among many black people, it is not considered a polite term to simply use in greeting.
What I don't understand is why under normal circumstances a white person would desire to say nigger. What's the point? If you really hold no racist feelings, then why on earth would you want to use such a vile and demeaning term? Is it some cheap thrill?
If you are engaged in a discussion where you need to say nigger, then I have no issue with that. However, it would come across as less offensive if you simply said n-word. What most black people object to is the use of the term nigger to define us. You can't call me a nigger and argue that you have a right to do so because it's not fair that only black people can say it. I just don't buy that white people are really that stupid or naive.
I have no problem with using the word in context to describe some historical application of the term. However, I don't find myself in circumstances where there is a need for the use of nigger as a rule. I can't help but wonder just when it is that white people find such a pressing need to say nigger that we're still having this ludicrous discussion about the alleged unfairness of white people not being able to freely use the word.
I have heard the same stupid argument that black people call each other that all the time. I agree with you; I count many people of color among my friends and acquaintances and I cannot recall one single time anyone I know calling someone by the N word. (I prefer saying N word. I don't think we can get a word to drop from our vocabulary unless we just stop using it). The N word is a term of disrespect period. There does not need to be any discussion. The same goes for all the other racial and gender slurs. These words are not necessary in our society for us to function as a society. I haven't seen this film and probably won't - not a big fan of Tarentino. But I have no doubt that his use of the N word dominated this film thus diminishing the story it could have told. Too bad because with that cast he could have produced a work that would have elevated him out of the B movie grind.
ReplyDeleteSheria,
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree -- I went to a middle school in which probably a majority of the students were African American, and I don't recall hearing the n-word often, in fact hardly at all. The notion that black people sling it around like nothing is a laughable bit of naivete.
A couple years back I taught Huckleberry Finn and found it a bit cumbersome because so many students were uncomfortable with all the n-word usage in that book. (Of course, Twain was representing and reflecting on a particular period of American history, one he understood well and by no means treated uncritically.) A few even hid behind the silly notion that "back then, everybody used the word so it wasn't negative." Huh? It was never anything but a vicious condemnation based on a person's skin color, used by participants in a racist culture without reflection because, like the Hegelian master, they had no need of reflecting on it.
On Django Unchained, haven't seen the film yet -- I guess I'll see it at some point because it's something different from Tarantino. I've long since become tired of the whole "I'm paying homage to other people's mafioso-films" schtick, so I haven't seen all of his work, but this film seems like something new. Tarantino has real talent -- I just haven't been enamored of what he spends it on, for the most part.
I didn't go for Spike Lee's seeming dismissal of Django as disrespectful of African American history -- it just seems to me that we shouldn't be quick to rule things in or out when it comes to artistic license and "representation" more broadly. I'm inclined to ask, why SHOULDN'T somebody make a pre-Civil-War-based film in which a black guy successfully takes vengeance for the injustice of slavery? Why does that have to be taken as a taboo fiction to represent when we could probably make a long list of historical events and personages who were treated with at least as much license?
The arguments that I read from white people who feel put upon because they can't use the word is that black rappers say it all the time! I don't know any rappers, but I don't count entertainers looking to make a dollar as the standard by which I live.
ReplyDeleteDumb white people can use the word all they wish. It only defines themselves. I was taught the word in 1965. I will not use it again.
Tried your recipe Sister.
Bloggingdino, I agree with regards to Spike Lee. He admits that he hasn't seen the film; he just objects to the concept and the use of the n-word. I can't give any credence to an opinion based on what he thinks of a film that he hasn't even viewed.
ReplyDelete"used by participants in a racist culture without reflection"
ReplyDeleteWhen bigotry is so pervasive and rampant, the word that comes come mind is "banal," and I think this is what may have confused readers of Twain.
Racism, anti-Semitism ... I've experienced both. During my first marriage, distant relatives from the "in-law" side would casually drop the "J" word within the context of being cheated or short-changed. I cannot recollect whether father-in-law or mother-in-law ever mentioned to those relatives that the young man married to their daughter was of the "J" ethnicity. Of course, I sat in stoney silence as these "J" words passed across the dinner table. After awhile, I ceased to care. The context was just too banal.
You know so many of the literary greats have made ugly and very overt anti-Semitic comments that it's spoiled a lot of English literature for me, but yet I read Eliot and Thomas Browne and Longfellow and countless others in context and set it aside. Orwell wrote an essay about it for what it's worth. It's sad that Sam Clemens is avoided, seeing his commitment to liberal causes because we ought to be noticing that few if any American authors ever offered us a character like Tom Sawyer's traveling companion. If Sawyer called him N****r, it was hardly out of any negative feeling and when he does it should remind us of that very unthinking banality it was supposed to remind us of.
DeleteIn fact keeping Tom Sawyer out of the curriculum reminds me that our prissy, formulaic, liberal by the numbers way of painting history is as revolting in its smug banality as refusing to teach about Custer or Wounded Knee or Auschwitz or the My Lai massacre. It's too much like Victorian prudery and just as a person reared in a sterile bubble won't develop a proper immune system, someone raised in such an atmosphere is going to have a hard time in this world.
" I just don't buy that white people are really that stupid or naive."
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't know - certainly not all of them, but many feel put upon that "you can't say n**** any more" and I still hear it said when the (usually old) bastard thinks nobody else can hear. I assume in general that nobody who has to puff himself up by demeaning black people is very fastidious with his dislikes and would be quite happy to talk about Ch*nks and Sp*cks and Kikes and the like, so although I dislike confrontations and would have to spend my day fighting if I didn't let these things slide, I do have a long memory.
I think that it is some kind of a cheap thrill actually. Both because young people (keep in mind that to me 90% of the world is young people) have this propensity to talk like the black people they see in the movies and on TV and hear in crap rap, who do use that word and because taking a pointless risk is thrilling in a cheap way. Behind it seems to be the notion that black people are very, very cool in a way that nobody else can be. Behind all of that of course is the idea that you know something about a person because he had African ancestors. That I find offensive as hell and I don't think anyone likes to be defined in such a way.
I was waiting at a stop light yesterday and some black kids in a truck were next to me and the whole vehicle was vibrating to something I can't call music with lyrics to the effect that "Real N****rs do real things" and it made me cringe and not just because you could hear it a quarter mile away. Some things aren't right no matter who does them.
I hate living with stereotypes and I think we're all guilty of thinking in that essentially prejudiced way from time to time: rednecks, trailer trash, yuppies, bleeding hearts, gun-nuts. . . It's not just about race or ethnicity. We just can't get enough pigeonholes to cram people into so that we don't have to argue intelligently or honestly and it demeans all of us.
It's sad that we still have such barriers around our various cultures and while I think it's hilarious that the Gingrichs of the world are amazed that people up in Harlem eat with knives and forks and don't modify every noun with MF, too many just don't socialize with black people enough to see our commonality and of course we have so many forces trying to keep us from feeling our common cause as Americans and as human beings. No, I haven't seen the Tarrentino thing either but I've had enough anger and revenge movies to last until the sun blows up. I just don't have time for any more of it.
And it's all just another reason for wanting a species change operation. I mean I've tried to go digital, but I missed the poetry.
" I think that it's time for me to take away the power of the word in my life."
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with this. Sad to say, as offensive as the word may be, we actually help the racist haters when we give such power to a word- it gives them a vicious weapon that they can discharge at will with little consequence to themselves.
Over the years, words like 'spic' or 'kike,' as offensive as they are, have been largely discharged of their power. When we hear people use them today, the main effect is simply to reveal their users to be assholes. I think it would be a good thing to see the same thing happen to this word.
" When we hear people use them today, the main effect is simply to reveal their users to be assholes."
ReplyDeleteWell said, but I think it already does that with a large majority of the younger half of the population and the future of that kind of overt racism isn't bright - nor are the people who indulge in it.
I do think we have to cut Mark Twain some slack though and other writers who are portraying speech as it really occurs. As we keep saying, language is a living and dying thing and language changes and not all users of that word are being racist in using it.
If it is a werd, there will be a proper context for it's use. For anyone. Anyone who speaks, writes, or thinks, that is.
ReplyDelete