I have been listening with interest to the discussion about President Barack Obama’s use of the “N” word during his recent interview coming shortly after the racist-motivated murder of the nine Bible studiers in Charlottesville. This controversy is a literal tempest in a teapot. Any student of the English language knows the difference between using a word and mentioning it. Obama clearly was not using the word to inflict insult and degradation, as it has been used historically by countless thousands of people to intentionally degrade and insult those it was aimed at. He was not using the word in the way the evil murderer used it.
He was mentioning the “N” word specifically to bring to mind how it is not the word itself, and the contemporary genteel aversion to using it in polite company, that characterizes the race problem in our nation. Rather it is a much deeper running attitude supporting and enforcing the notion behind the “N” word that is still active and prevalent among some parts of our society. He was telling us what is obvious: that though the use of this word is largely fading, the intent behind this word is not. What he is telling us is that although the use of the “N” word is fading, for some the intentional slurring and castigation behind the word is still actively practiced and very intentional.
It is a word used to demean, degrade and insult those it arrogantly attempts to describe. Our president’s suggestion to us is that the same intent embodied in the actual use of the word has not disappeared simply because it is no longer politically acceptable to use the word in polite company. He simply states a reality that many Americans experience in their daily lives. The word may be fading but the racist attitude that created the word still lives on, in the minds of people like the racial terrorist who acted on that feeling to murder nine incredible human beings.
This is a teaching moment. Our president is schooling us on how much our deep attitudes towards each other matter, how much our misconceptions of the apparent differences that we have with our neighbors, our fellow citizens, can mar our respect for them as brothers and sisters with whom we have far more in common than we dare to imagine.
As a nation we have watched the inclusive generosity of the families of the nine, the astounding forgiveness they have extended, and the fully active voices from all ethnic and political sides of this racial divide to say Enough! What was done here was done to all of us. What was done here has wounded us all.
Maybe from this wounding we can, all of us, understand what it means to be the object, the thing, this slur attempts to inflict on us. Maybe, if we can begin to understand how much this hurts, we can root out the attitude in our hearts that gives meaning to the “N” word, and learn to accept that we are brothers and sisters together in the hard task of simply being human.
Daniel Paul Gould
Whitefish