A Word that Refuses to Go Away

When Michael Richards began to rant using racial profanity during his night club act, no one thought that they were witnessing anything more than a has been turning into a never was. Richards has apologized profusely and often, even to the point of face to face talks with Jessie Jackson. Now all this apologizing might help to restart a terminal career but what has emerged on a positive note is that society is once again having to confront the slippery meaning of the N-word. Bill Cosby hates that word under any circumstance, yet Afro-American comedians and rappers use it as an integral part of their acts. Most black users of the N-word agree that it is acceptable for blacks to use it but not whites. This racial nuance of the user brings in some tricky subtexts of content and context. If a word is told in a joking context by an Afro-American that brings down the house, why then can't a white comedian tell that same joke and not have to worry about being called racist? The answer, of course, is that the former can and the latter can't. And this brings in the larger question of the mutability of language. Words change faster than people do. The context of the N-word had only one meaning up until fairly recently. Now thanks to a generation of overuse by those who are very nearly one hundred percent black, its meaning has softened--so long as the user is black. There are plenty of reminders in our society and history to force us to continually confront the paradox of a word whose bestial beginnings we would like to banish to linguistic purgatory but popular culture demands that we use if for no other reason to reaffirm that what once began as beastly has now emerged as comic.