TheCapitalClinic

No matter how badly you want to be a [N-word], you cannot. I know how much it means to some of us. Long before we were railroaded thru the injustice system, plagued by unequal education, subjected to poor healthcare, herded into housing projects, discriminated against in the workforce, demoralized, emasculated, lynched, maimed, castrated and mutilated. Long before we were indoctrinated, enslaved, raped, some of us tied to pliable trees that ripped us limb from limb, lynched, lashed until our flesh turned inside out, some of us having the fetuses sliced and snatched from wombs. Long, long, long before those things, we were shipped here, chained together for months with buckets of water used to splash away the perspiration, vomit, urine, feces, and blood we lay cramped in. It was there where ship captains like John Hawkins walked shin deep through the bellies of ships sloshing through our blood and inhaling the stench of our festering flesh and dead bodies as if it were fine cigar smoke. His ilk were no more disturbed by our desperate screams, moans and suffering than slaughter house workers are moved by the shrieks of future entrees. The reason is because slavers had already convinced themselves that WE were sub-human. John Hawkins, after all, was noble, a British Knight, in fact. Hell, he knew the queen (Elizabeth I). Yes, brethren, it had to be us who were out of reach of G*d's grace. Hawkins and his kind created an imaginary being to reason the righteousness of their barbarism and christened us that; [the N-word]. We, of course, emphatically disagreed. Us? Ignorant? During 700 years of Moorish rule it was many of us that taught them the very shipbuilding and navigation skills they used to transport us across Hades to their new haven. We had taught at and/or been educated at the university of Jenne, we were scholars, warriors, linguist, business men, craftsmen and master agriculturalist. We created Timbuktu (it lied in the very grounds they enslaved us in). We were not [N-word]s. Fortunately for Sir Hawkins, it didn't matter what we knew, he needed to believe that we were less than human in order to feel better about whatever he was.

We never cared that they referred to us as "Negro" or "Black." That is how we appeared to them. However, [the N-word] is not a mispronunciation of Negro (instead, Nee-grow is a mispronunciation of Nay-grow). [The N-word] is a blatant attempt at branding a sub-human race. But that race has only existed in the mind of the oppressor, at least until, as if in agreement, some of us began to allow that fictitious dehumanized race of people to exist in our heads too. But unlike the oppressor we didn't point the finger outward and say, "Naw, yall have been the most bloodthirsty, vicious 'superior people' that ever existed. Yall must be [N-word]s." Instead, many of us prefer to self-identify with the word and the concept. "No matter how much knowledge or money you accumulate you will still be one of those fictitious people!" Yeah, it makes sense to the oppressor, who needs to think of you as a [N-word] to justify your oppression as something other than inhumane; ordained even. However, how could you believe it too? You must surely know you are not that and could never be. Regardless of color, people are people.

At one point in our interaction with our oppressors, we began to refer to them as "Devils." Unlike us though, they never adopted the term; never embraced it. Besides, even if Bush and Cheney considered themselves devils, they still would not be. A young white lady once inquired of Malcolm, if there was something she could do to not be a devil. He later regretted telling her, "No." Like John Hawkins, people can exhibit sinister behavior, but they still never become devils, like we could never become [N-word]s. They imagined an entire group of beings that deserved to be treated even worse than their own commoners were treated in the era of the Black Plague. Not us; we didn't think it up. Nor can we spend our existence trying to ascertain through their conservative think-tanks what the complete concept of a [N-word] is so that we can please them by becoming more like it.

(PART 2)

A few weeks back I featured at a poetry slam where a talented young black man faced with three black judges and two white ones, did a poem about why we should continue to refer to ourselves as [N-word]s and how he was so upset that some of us felt we should not be called that. How dare we! The judges gave him 9.9's across the board. I'm sure all were smiling but the smiles of the two white judges, innocent as they may have been, upset me.

The current argument that I hear more and more is, with all of the racial injustice, the unnecessary wars, the problems with healthcare and education, how could you care about a word? "Yo! I know there's a dog attacking an elderly woman right in front of you, but how can you worry about that now when the daycare down the street is on fire?" Naw, homey, we've got to worry about it all. Let's split up. It's ALL important. We cannot allow the burning daycare to be an excuse for letting that dog claim another victim. And ay, Paul Revere, why do you even have time to tell me to stop helping her, shouldn't you be down the street? Helping?

But why should I even explain the logic, that argument is only a smokescreen anyway. The person making it is attached to [the N-word] and fighting harder than her/his oppressor to keep it. Many black people have identified with it so long that they fear they would lose their only identity without it. "If I'm not a [N-word] what would I be?" I don't know...I guess a man or a woman? "But then, if you call me that, I won't be able to make sense of why I'm treated so unfairly by society." Yeah, exactly!

Oddly enough, now that racists have largely stopped calling us [the N-word] (not that they've all stopped imagining us as that and thus using it privately and internally), we have begun to identify with their fantasy sub-human more and more. Carter G Woodson, founder of what has become Black History Month, said, "When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary."

This is exactly why I would not advocate banning the word. If it were illegal, black people would be fined, prosecuted and jailed almost exclusively! A new era would be ushered in that would dwarf racial profiling as the number one means of keeping black people in the legal system. So many of us are absolutely compelled to say and identify with [the N-word] that you cannot help but see the irony in a system of racist media that works thru music, magazines, movies and news to convince black people that we are [N-words], just for the benefit of turning those of us who embrace their brainwashing, into fodder for the prison industrial complex (i.e., neo-slavery). Wait a minute, that sounds like today! I wouldn't want to see the word banned. I just want you to see that it's use is self-defeating neuro-linguistic programming.

If the oppressor needs to think of you as a [N-word] to "justify" his injustice, then your volunteering to consider yourself a [N-word] makes it easier and works to the oppressor's benefit. You both get to play pretend, the oppressor gets a clear conscience and in return you get to keep your [expletive deleted] eyes closed.

At that poetry slam, no racist white person (not saying there was one there) needed to convince the black people that we are [N-word]s, nah there was a young brother who couldn't wait to do the convincing for them.

Honestly, I talked to the young brother the following night and found him to be intelligent and sincere. But, like, WTF? "Let's agree to disagree," as a rap mogul told me once (actually twice) when I refused to stop pushing the subject. I recently read a magazine where another rap mogul commented that he would stop using [the N-word] immediately if you could promise him that the hood would get better. Hmmm...feels kind of like, no matter how rich I become, I know how to stay in my 'proper place.' It was pointed out to me that trying to convince rich rappers to stop using [the N-word] is nearly pointless anyway. After all, what one word has brought them more money?

Oh there have been so many of these words. Latino's have been the S-word, Chinese have been another C-word, Christians have been the I-word, Muslims have been the T-word, Vietnamese have been the G-word, Jews have been the K-word and so on and so forth. But it's only the targets of the [N-world] who seem to REALLY want to make it work.

So if Muslim Fundamentalists made up the dominant consumer culture and likewise controlled the media, they might favor Christian rappers who were willing to refer to themselves as infidels (you know, in a counterculture, underdog kind of way). The Muslim kids who made up much of the consumer class would not be inclined to support Christian rappers who did not validate their street cred by referring to themselves and their kind as infidels. Then in interviews the Christian rappers would spit propaganda like, "Yo, keep it real! There's so many other things to worry about than Muslims calling us infidels!"

Interviewer: "Yeah but I'm asking why you refer to your own people as infidels."

Rapper: "Well when Muslims stop treating us like infidels I'll stop using the word."

Interviewer: "Uhm...yeah...commercial break please!"

(PART 3)

So my friend is trying to show me how there were instances of phonetic equivalents of [the N-word] (with positive meanings) in ancient Africa and I'm distraught thinking, "So Black people are really doing hella linguistic research, desperate to justify the continued use of [the N-word]? Are there positive words phonetically similar to the word "Cracker" in ancient Macedonian? Oh my bad we should solely stick to finding positive reasoning for the racial slurs that apply to us? Oh...gotcha!" So, then uhm, if our research unveils that the B-word sounds phonetically identical to a dynasty of queens in ancient Bornu, would it make it ok to begin conveying that title on our mothers? Easy, homey, I'm just asking.

I'm not holier than thou. Before I became an adult I used [the N-word] as much as anyone else. I used it much less in my twenties. Since then I've used it very rarely, and generally when I do, I'm certainly referring to someone exhibiting some real exceptional ignorance. It bothers me that people attempt to use it lovingly. It kills me when people use it to address their children. Why draw the line at referring to your children as ignorant? might as well go on ahead and call them failure.

What is a [N-word] capable of? Is it's capacity limited by the imaginations of the racists who created the concept? The idea that "people are people" doesn't seem to make sense in a world where a group of people voluntarily associate themselves with a concept created by those that completely despise them. Marcus Garvey said, "Whatsoever man has done; Man can do." ALL PEOPLE ARE LIMITLESS. How could we allow ourselves to live within the parameters of another man's imagination? Every woman and man in this existence is made up of the same energy force. You are a product of The Creator. You are what you think you are, not what other people imagine you to be. A group of people created the concept of a [N-word], if they want to become it, that's their prerogative, but they cannot force you to conform to being a [N-word] so that they may imagine themselves superior. Your attempt to re-create yourself in the image another man wishes you to be seems ungodly. You were made, not by another man, but in the image of your Creator, and face it, your Creator never was, nor never will be a [N-word]. I hope you will own that fact, because we can never truly understand, own nor become a [N-word]; some ridiculous creation of other people's minds.

Taalam Acey - December 2007