I’m of two minds about this story, about Alabama’s Stillman College hosting a conference on…not race relations in general, but the “N” word itself:

With a debate swirling nationwide over the n-word, a historically black college in Alabama has set aside four days to discuss the racial slur.Participants at the conference, which began Thursday and ends Sunday, discussed topics ranging from the origins of the epithet to whether juggling a few letters makes it socially acceptable at the NSurrection Conference at Stillman College.

Organizers said the goal of the event is to challenge the use of the n-word “through the use of intelligent dialogue and a thorough examination of black history.”

Debate over the use of the word has escalated in recent months, with comedian Michael Richards racial rant prompting black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and California Rep. Maxine Waters to urge the public and the entertainment industry to stop using it.

Uh…waitaminnit.

Is there really “debate” over the word? Doesn’t pretty much everyone agree that it’s wrong?

Well, of course not; the conference does indeed address the very incongruity that has gone through every thinking person’s mind since they saw Richard Pryor’s first movie; why the “N-word” is the most caustic word in the history of the language when some people say it, and a term of endearment when others do:

“I really think that as far as white people are concerned, the word is almost on its way out,” said Hacker, who is white. “That said, there are a lot of white people who still in the privacy of their own minds think the word even if they don’t use it because they regard black people as genetically inferior and that word categorizes that.”

Kovan Flowers, co-founder of AbolishTheNWord.com, said striking the word from use would help set an example for other races.

“We can’t say anything to Hispanics, or whites or whoever unless we stop using it ourselves,” he said. “It’s the root of the mind-set that’s affecting why people are low, from housing to jobs to education.”

Stillman senior Maurice Williams said he organized the conference hoping to educate his peers about the history of the word. The event includes a community fair, charity basketball game, unity march and discussions ranging from the word’s origin to its use among various ethnic groups.

“I had to understand that a lot of the images that we portray in television, in the media, in the hip-hop environment — all of those things have the same connotations as the n-word itself, so therefore it’s the n-word personified,” Williams said. “Where do you see another culture portraying some of these same images?”

Not just “where”, but “why”?

Rapper Tupac Shakur was credited with legitimizing the term “nigga” when he came out with the song “N.I.G.G.A.,” which he said stood for “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.”

Stillman English professor Alisea McLeod said she doesn’t buy it.

“It’s hogwash. What this is really indicative of is a heart problem,” she said. “What is coming out of mouths is what is coming out of souls. These are not words that are uplifting and I think (they) point to a bigger problem — a lack of self-love.”

“Self-love”, perhaps.

Self-awareness, as well. Shakur’s “Strictly 4 Ma N.I.G.G.A.Z.” came out in 1993, two years after “N.W.A“, short for “N___z With Attitude”, a group that achieved immense success without the benefit of any radio airplay in the late eighties. It also happened nearly two decades after Richard Pryor released “That N_____’s Crazy”, his first big mainstream success.

Wanna get rid of the word? Stop saying it.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 4:51 am and is filed under Culture War, Ebony And Ivory, Language, PC / "Woke" Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.