It's Complicated ....
Click to be Tommy or Philbert, or something.
So is there ever a time that a white person could use that word and not be accused of being racist?
I'll say yes, with the proviso that, like the definition of art, you not ask me to be more specific.
In my opinion, society doesn't get to weasel out of its obligations just because they are unpleasant. We can have these words back when we have enough separation from them, and we don't have
any separation at a time when the answer that white people get to decide what the word means to the people it was intended to hurt and black people just need to get over it is anywhere within a realm of potential viability. Bottom line is that if medical technology allows me to live two hundred years, I might see certain words find their place in decent society, and I'll probably need a whole lot more than that.
I can think of a thousand reasons why Bill Maher gets off with a lecture that goes, approximately, "Damn it, man! Don't fucking do that! Don't pull that out unless you know goddamn good and well what the fuck you're fucking doing!"
But I'm not black, and not a single one of those reasons means a thing in my hands.
If Bill Maher doesn't get a pass this time—you know, for being well-intentioned and generally on people of color's side, and, you know, not the worst of assholes among the privileged—it's his own damn fault.
Think of it this way, though: There are times at which it is necessary to recall Lee Atwater, and circumstantially speaking, while I cannot claim divine right to the word according to principles of justice, I am willing to argue that we abide a disservice, and abet injustice, if we censor him—it is important that people know what he said.
And, you know, if we get our self-righteous privilege on, I'm not above invoking Lester Cowens in order to make certain points. If we intend to discuss the Southern Strategy and its American toll, we must be prepared to face the word responsibly, including our utterance of its name; you have to be able to say it three times in a row. The Cowens recitation must be treated as hypersensitive, explosive, and radioactive; to speak it is a devastating accusation, an American Godwin threshold.
By the way, they finally fired the cop who killed Tamir Rice. Not for killing Tamir Rice, mind you. But, rather, they finally got around to their due diligence, figured out he never should have been on their force in the first place, and fired him for irregularities in his paperwork. That is to say, they didn't fire him for shooting the black kid, but for how he got the job by which he shot the black kid.
In the meantime, though, at least he ....
I don't know, am I willing to say it? I mean, he doesn't actually have to openly and consciously hate black people in order to be a trigger-happy bully moron incapable of controlling either his emotional response to violence or his reaction to skin color.
Still, though, he was just so fucking anxious. He was itching to shoot
someone.
But is this the occasion to break out
that word, and
that line?
No, probably not today. Can't promise you either way, but I'm not black, so ... that ain't my life we're talking about, and whoever the fuck is throwing down nooses in D.C. ain't talkin' to me.
We're not out of this yet. To the one, the word should be handled with extraordinary caution. To the other, handling the word at all really ought to be a fairly low priority for someone like me, who gets, "Good evening, sir, may I see your license and registration, please?" even when I'm about to be arrested instead of bright lights and orders to place my hands on my head while the car is literally on fire. And we happen to live in a time when cops make shit up in order to coddle their inner Lester. No, really:
Ferguson effect, my ass. Unequivocal support, my ass. An unarmed black man walking away is more of a threat to life and limb than a white guy with a rifle saying he's going to kill you. Welcome to America; we're not out of this mess, yet.
Something like that.