Now everybody knows there is a word you cannot say.
It is much worse than other words that fill us with dismay.
Greater by far than Kike, or Wop, or, Dot-Head or Ofay.
Grave consequences loom for those that put this word in play.
Exactly why it should be so no one can quite convey.
Resulting in a secret urge to say it every day.
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines it as “Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. A contemptuous term used to refer to a black person” and “A person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.” Detective Mark Furman used the word occasionally as did most all of the police or correction officers that I ever knew, black or white. Last year, the black high-school freshmen and sophomores, boys and girls in my class used it so frequently and so freely that I would give them extra credit if they substituted the words “misguided gentleman of color”. I have used it a least once that I recall while engaged in a particularly onerous fist-fight as a young man. I meant it in that instance too.
From time to time, I like to paraphrase Hober Mallow, the Mayor of Terminus; a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's “Foundation” series saying that “Profanity is the last refuge of the incompetent.” People who resort to racial epithets are just that, incompetent. Michael Richards demonstrated this recently by resorting to their use in a situation faced by every standup comic since the thousand year old man; being heckled by a couple of audience members, a situation he should have easily taken in stride. Nevertheless this incident demonstrates that we have been giving greater power to this word than it ever deserved, especially of late. Jesse Jackson has said that the word “nigger” is unprotected under the First Amendment. I think rather that it should be unprotected from ridicule, and from marginalization. Let us reduce it to the infantile position to which it belongs, along side the word “doo doo.” Perhaps we can set aside a day each year to use this hate-filled word in place of every other noun until it becomes a meaningless construct devoid of any emotion other than pity for the ignorant few who continue to employ it. But it’s more than time to lighten up on the moral outrage. Sticks and stones you know.