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Ebony
and Irony
When George
Carlin died a couple of weeks ago, there were still two words
that you can’t say on television. Or pretty much anyplace else,
for that matter. All the other words now slip through the
cultural net, thanks to the proliferation of cable channels and
a general acceptance of profanity, but not these two. They are
the words that must not be spoken. You have to use their
nicknames instead.
These words are
so horrible, so spine-chilling, and so dangerous, that we speak
in code instead of actually saying them. The code is the worst
kept secret in the history of humanity, because everybody knows
what the words are. Still, we say “f-word” and “n-word” as
though the hyphen was a burqa, concealing them from sight.
The coded
nicknames elevate the words and give them status unenjoyed by
other words. Rock stars, rap artists, and popular athletes have
nicknames. That makes them cool. These two words have
nicknames. Does that make them cool words?
Deborah
Douglas, an African-American columnist for the Chicago
Sun-Times, used to think so.
She admitted that she has frequently used the n-word and liked
it:
“When the men
in my life lie, cheat and act selfishly, the n-word has been my
choice weapon of verbal emasculation. When family members derail
an intellectual debate, saying ‘you're acting white,’ the n-word
has helped me dig down to their level (Look n - - - - -, what
I'm trying to tell you is . . .) to get the discourse back on
track. When I see people who want -- and expect -- so much and
do so little to get it, the n-word sweetly sums up my
commentary. And when that little rusty-butt boy snatched my
purse outside of Magic Johnson's Starbucks after church one
Sunday, guess what category he went into?”
Whoopi Goldberg
tried to say much the same thing to the clueless Elisabeth
Hasselback, “The View’s” token albino. “We don’t live in
different worlds,” Hasselback argued to the panel. “We live in
the same world.”
“We do live in different worlds,” replied Goldberg. “It’s
just that way. It is, Elisabeth.” Whoopi cushioned her comment
with an explanation: "What I need you
to understand is the frustration that goes along with when you
say we live in the same world. It isn't balanced."
I suppose the frank “national discussion of race”
the nation needs has to start somewhere. Perhaps recognizing
that black people can say the n-word but white people can’t is a
good starter. The word is ironic when black people say it,
because they are co-opting a hateful term coined by white
racists. The same word coming from a white person’s mouth is
stripped of irony. That is not a double standard; it is a
vestige of institutional hatred.
On the other hand, the f-word is a vestige of
something, but nobody really knows what.
It apparently appeared for the first time in the 14th
century, ironically in code. Whether its origin is
Anglo-Saxon, Latin, or German, or possibly all three, is also
unknown. The only certainty is that when somebody says it on
broadcast television somebody in the Federal Communications
Commission goes into convulsions.
Another irony is that brilliant comedic minds
slipped the words past movie censors by using code. When Mae
West locked the door on W. C. Fields in “My Little Chickadee,”
he muttered, “There’s an Ethiopian in the fuel supply.” When
Groucho Marx tried to set up a midnight rendezvous with a sultry
blonde in “Night At the Opera,” he suggested a late night snack,
adding that “We can enjoy a little stake between us.” (The
Censor thought he said “steak.”)
One of the words might, in fact, go away: the
n-word. Douglas says that she’ll stop using it. “We
did have a lot of fun” she tells the word. “Like a drunken
uncle, you are a great punch line. But you are hurting people I
care about, so you've got to go.”
Co-opting the n-word failed to disinfect it. The hateful
residue remains, even when black people use it ironically. It
probably will f-f-fade away.
But not the f-word. It’s fun to say, and can be a noun,
verb, or simple exclamation. I still use it in casual
conversation because it seems ridiculous for grown ups to speak
in childish code with hyphens. A word that requires hyphenated
code must be so horrific, so unforgiveable, and so irredeemable
that the need for code is apparent. One four-letter proper noun
still falls into that category.
Which is why I use the term “B-word.”
© July 18, 2008 by
Mike Tully |
