"Straight Up Nigger"

"You gotta be a straight up nigger," I hear.

I'm sorry to be so totally not "with it", but I was (to say the least) somewhat shocked. Although I hear an endless stream of the word in in movies, on television, in songs and from the mouths of black comedians, I have never heard it while walking with my wife in public in a place where there are small children present. And even after the hundreds, if not thousands, of times that I've heard it, I was offended.

I never heard the word in my parent's house while growing up. I was raised in the military (which is highly integrated) and never heard the word used in school. I realize that I grew up in a more innocent time, but even so, I was somewhat taken aback by the strength of my reaction to the word.

I, middle age white male, was offended.

I looked over and saw a group of adults talking just a few feet away from the youths. The parents? I don't know, but I hope not. But even if not, why did they not say something?

It was repeated, louder and more emphatic. "You. gots. ta be. a. straight. up. nigger."

If the word has come to mean something less pejorative than when we were growing up, then fine. "Bitch" used to be a word that got your mouth washed out with soap, but these days it's someone who is being spiteful or difficult. Now everyone says it. "You bitch!" you can exclaim. There are worse things to say.

So if "nigger" is not the derogatory term that it once was, then everyone should be able to use it. I should have been able to turn to the kids and say, "He's right. If you're going to be a nigger you should be a straight up nigger!" and they would laugh and I would smile and wave. But I can't. Had I done so there may have been bloodshed. Because had I done so I would now be in jail for shooting one or two people as they would almost certainly have turned on me with hate-filled eyes, animus in their hearts and malice in their souls.

And rightly so, for it is a word filled with hate that should never be used.

It is a word filled with emotive historical context of which no one should be ignorant, and certainly not these youths, for if a word could ever be evil, then this one certainly is. Its mere utterance evokes imagery of separate water fountains and of stepping into the street with eyes downcast to give others the use of a sidewalk; of cross burnings and church bombings and lynchings in the dark of night; of wrongful arrests and beatings administered with barbaric cruelty in the name of order and justice.

It is a word which represents a concept that generations have fought and died to eradicate from our hearts and minds.

The abolition movement in this country started at least as early as 1688 and grew to include men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and George Washington. John Brown led a botched revolution to end it and women like Harriet Tubman risked their lives working the Underground Railroad. Our nation endured unimaginable savagery during a long and bloody civil war. Fighting prejudice gave us great civil rights figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

The fight to rid the world of prejudice produced many more courageous men and women willing perform heroic acts. Every time the word is used, it is an insult to the valorous men of the Tuskagee Airmen, to the intrepid pugnacity of Fannie Lou Hamer, and to the incalculable courage exhibited by a group of children who became known as the Little Rock Nine. But these youths have probably never heard of these brave individuals, which makes it all the sadder. They do not understand the centuries of struggle and how far we have come.

The word represents a malignancy that has been cut out of our souls by innumerable acts of bravery; excised through unimaginable passion and indescribable suffering; expunged by boundless determination and extraordinary sacrifice.

At least, it should have been. The battle for civil rights was won, but the greater war for equality has been lost; the proof lies in the continued use of the word. The evil still exists as long as the word is uttered. These youths are throwing away all the gains by perpetuating the word, and what the word represents. They do not know that their use of the word is a tragedy of enormous proportions.

There is a sickness in the soul of black America that is no less pernicious than the sickness darkening the heart of Islam. The sickness is evidenced by the rise of victimization and entitlement culture, the breakdown of morals and of family, and the denigration of women. It is a sickness perpetrated in the worst imaginable case of black-on-black crime in history.

People, if you don't want me to say it then don't use the word. More importantly, if you don't want your peers of other races to say it, then don't use it. You can't be mad if they do. You mustn't.

But you will, won't you? And the hatred, the divisiveness will grow.

Bill Cosby is offended, too. He presented this message for the second time, this time to Jesse "Shakedown" Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other n----r as they're walking up and down the street," he said.

Cosby continued railing about the state of black youth in America. "They think they're hip," he said. "They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."...He complained about rap music: "When you put on a record, and that record is yelling 'n----r this' and 'n----r that' and cursing all over the thing and you got your little six-year-old and seven-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car--those children hear that. And I am telling you when you put the CD on and then you get up and dance to it, what are you saying to your children?"

And he also ripped into sitcoms targeting African-American audiences: "Comedians coming on TV [saying,] 'I am so ugly, you are ugly, yuck, yuck.' That's all minstrel show stuff. I am tired of it."

In May, Cosby got in hot water with several civil rights activists when he criticized the lifestyle, education and speech patterns of his fellow African Americans, saying there is no excuse for ignorant behavior.

"I can't even talk the way these people talk, 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is'...and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk," Cosby said in May. "And then I heard the father talk...Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth."

On Thursday, Cosby further elaborated his thoughts on the subject, saying once again that white people aren't to blame for teen pregnancy and high-school dropout rates.

"For me there is a time...when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."

The more you invest in that child, the more you are not going to let some CD tell your child how to curse and how to say the word 'nigger.' This is an accepted word. You are so hip with 'nigger,' but you can't even spell it," an impassioned Cosby lamented.

Whatever happened to 'Black is beautiful?' Well, it was replaced with 'nigger please,'" he said to laughter....

"Education, ladies and gentleman, respect the elderly, respect for yourselves, respect for others," Cosby said.

"These young girls have no business having sex!" he emphasized as the crowd clapped approvingly.

One of the enduring hallmarks of a black leader, indeed any leader, is his or her ability to mobilize a mass of people. An effective black leader has to be able to reignite a fire under a community of disaffected people, but also those blacks with more education, more money and greater access to information than at any time in our history.

Who will the black leaders be?

Will they be community activists such as Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church, who isn't even African-American, but who has worked for years in impoverished black communities for change?

What about prominent and powerful blacks who aren't widely considered black leaders? I'm thinking about National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell or even Time Warner Chief Executive Officer Richard Parsons.

Jesse may see this coming as well:

Jesse Jackson, head of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, wipes a tear from his face in an emotional moment after listening to entertainer Bill Cosby address the civil rights organization's annual conference, Thursday, July 1, 2004, in Chicago.

How is black America receiving this message? For an answer I headed over to a discussion board at BET. I found that the vast majority of responses were along lines like these:

From sunshinegrl82:

Thank you Dr.Cosby! His message is one of accountability. He should've touched on the poor's dependence on the government too.

Since when did our government deserve our trust to the point where they are building our houses, feeding our children, building our apartments, giving us our money, handling our family business, and teaching our children what it means to be Black in America with the history books they distribute in public schools?

Poor Black people are allowing the same government that enslaved us for hundreds of years, to run their lives(mental slavery). Let me tell you. Our government hasn't changed so much.

Dr. Cosby has said the same thing our mothers,father,grandparents have said all our lives get a good education work hard for what you want. Everything comes at some cost nothing comes for free! Today's youth glorify Basketball players,Football players, rappers and drugdealers its all in our face everywhere TV, Video and movies.
they are our modern day Robin Hood.
We make fun of the educated brothers and sistas we call them nerds. Its not hot to be smart, and get good grades respect your elders. It all begins at home. We our so quick to fault parents but the family structure has broken down completely.

All I can say is thank you Bill!!! Our culture has gone backwards.

not to boast, I remember my mother use to wake me up like 4.00am to study for exams that I have, while still at elementary/middle school.This was in NIgeria. I live alone now in USA for the last 4.5 yrs. I just graduated with 3.798 GPA in Biomedical engineering.she laid the foundation earlier. I work to pay bills and was going to school. If parents in America spend time with their kidds LIKE MY MUM did with me and my brother, then Cosby won't be saying this. his emphasis was not on using those words, but it would be better if they can speak English. I mean, I have a Black american friend who pronounces 50 as fity. she can't prounce it right in class. pretty sick. Coaby is plainly right.

I am only 14 years old and I agree with everything that he said. I often thought about what Bill said and it is true. Black people don't want to live up the truth and the truth is we need to wake up. Just like the Missy Elliot joint wake up "i love jacob, but jewelry won't fix my place up.." All i can say is god bless bill cosby for making a statement that has been hidden for years.

If racism died today, would we as African Americans immediately rise to prominence? Or how long would it take? 5yrs, 10? Would all of our AIDS problems, baby having baby issues and drug problems vanish? Truth is we?re all scared to say that if you erase racism as the sole cause to all of black Americas ills you would have to deal with issues that until now have been taboo in the black community.

These posts give me hope. Hatred, fear, ignorance -- these are things we should strive to leave behind. Billions for welfare and public education, and we are worse off than before. Please, please, let's start putting some thought into our policies instead of supporting the feel-good cause of the day.

The Jackson's and Sharpton's of the world are losing their importance as other leaders are standing up, other role models are stepping forward.

It's time to move -- not to move on, but to move forward. Together.

Update: The Boston Globe has an excellent take on why this is not just black America's problem:

From a white perspective, it is easy to cheer on Cosby then smugly write off his words as a long-overdue wake-up call for black America. It's their problem, not ours, right?

Their problem it may be, but the big issue -- declining values and standards -- isn't limited to one ethnicity or neighborhood.

Today the American minivan is hip-hopping along the way to soccer games and baseball practice. The beat is a better pickup than caffeine, but listen to the lyrics and the message is a real downer. Not to sound like Tipper Gore, but after a while you realize you are singing about shaking your "tailfeather," "milking the cow," and "double-Ds," with the n-word thrown around as generously as the Beatles used "yeah, yeah, yeah." White boys can't jump, but many of them want to be Kobe Bryant or, short of that, Ja Rule. They want the money, the cars, and the bootylicious babes, and they see no connection between those goals and reading "A Separate Peace." (Incidentally, it is difficult to explain why a certain ethnic slur is unacceptable when they hear their rap idols singing it on their favorite CDs.)...

The hip-hop generation is not all black. White America just likes to believe it is.

Blog post #3085 in category Politics

Truly superior bloggers that reference "Straight Up Nigger":

» Bill Cosby from Being American in T.O.:

July 2 - One of the terrific things about the Shotgun is the ready access to good posts that say what I meant to say. A case in point: Spinkiller's musings over Bill Cosby's challenge to black Americans to take... [Read More]

Tracked on July 3, 2004 8:56 AM

» Submitted for Your Approval from Watcher of Weasels:

First off...  any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here.  Die spambots, die!  And now...  here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher's Council for this week's vote. Council links:Los ... [Read More]

Tracked on July 6, 2004 10:06 PM

» The Council Has Spoken! from Watcher of Weasels:

First off...  any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here.  Die spambots, die!  And now...  the winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are INDC Interviews "Military Families Speak ... [Read More]

Tracked on July 8, 2004 10:26 PM

» The Cosby Effect: Subliminal side effects from Prometheus 6:

AlphaPatriot has a long post reacting to Dr Cosby and his overhearing a conversation at McDonalds. In the process he has the very reaction warned about at Get In Where Ya Fit In Here's the AlphaPatriot: So if "nigger" is... [Read More]

Tracked on July 9, 2004 5:07 AM

» The Council Has Spoken from INDC Journal:

The results from this week's Watcher's Council are in, and the winners are ... Non-Council Link: The fantastic Small Party and Great Hopes, by Iraq the Model Council Link: And bringing home the gold is INDC's own, INDC Interviews "Military... [Read More]

Tracked on July 10, 2004 9:28 PM