Hypocrisy of the N-Word or What did you call me?

Hypocrisy of the N-word

Or

What did you call me?

A few weeks ago Spike Lee mentioned in an interview that he would not see Django Unchained, the latest movie from director Quentin Tarantino.  "I cant speak on it 'cause I'm not gonna see it. All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me...I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else”. Spike attributes his views on the films subject matter. That slavery era films shouldn’t be boiled down to an action/revenge flick.  The most damning thing detractors point to is the over 100+ uses of the N-Word in the film.

And it is all bullshit.

How dare we get mad because this movie uses the N-word over 100 times yet we remain silent on the fact that our music is drenched in the word? 100 times is mild for a rap song. Maybe if QT put a rhythm track behind the N-words no one would blink twice. Or maybe Spike Lee should shut the hell up since no one was counting the N-words in “School Daze”. Therein lies the problem. We have this “I can do it but you can’t mentality”.  It’s offensive if QT tries to say something about race but no one bats an eye when Dave Chappelle does it.

I hate the N-word. I don’ use it. It doesn’t come up in my usual speech patterns. The only way Dr. King’s dream of an equal world is by making it true in our hearts. The government can’t make equality happen. Only through our actions can ‘little black boys and girls hold hands with little white boys and girls as brothers and sisters’. As such I don’t see a person by their race. I see the individual.  I am a firm believer that a lot of our social problems can be solved by the golden rule: “Treat other how you want to be treated”. This belief I have does not coexist with using the N-word.

The only real solution to this is to drop the N-Word altogether. No one use it. It doesn’t take the power of the word away as we can see. The only way to take the power of the N-word away is by stop using the word and letting it die away.  Think about the other euphemisms that no longer are used. They lost their power because people stopped using them. 

Richard Pryor used the N-Word in his stand up acts like fish drink water. After a trip to Africa Pryor vowed to stop using the word. 

The black community has a lot of problems and one of the first things we can do is to start respecting each other. Lets drop the N-word and move into the 21st century.

Oh and Spike Lee. He isn’t angry about the N-word. There’s another word he is angry about and it’s the R-word: Relevance.