I guess I agree with that on a case-by-case basis. If a white guy said, “Barack…he’s talking down to black people…telling niggers how to behave,” I think it would be pretty hard to read his intent.
Overall I’m not sure if I agree with you- but I read your comment about “We all have to adhere to the same rules” in a different way than you intended.
Because it’s fun to make a huge stink when famous people behave inappropriately.
I’m curious.
Jesse Jackson said that Barack was “talking down to black people… telling niggers how to behave”.
Is there a chance that Jackson sees Barack as something outside of the black community? Is that why Jackson phrased it that way?
Barack was raised by his white grandmother, right? Is it assumed, then, that Barack did not “live the urban black experience”? (I haven’t read Barack’s book, so I don’t know exactly what racism Barack has had to deal with while growing up.)
If a black baby was adopted and raised in a white upscale family, I assume that baby would grow up with the cultural quirks of it’s adopted parents. Would that baby not be seen as “really black” by Jackson?
Could Jackson define black as more than just skin color, but a shared cultural experience, as well?
I think this is about right. I read Jackson’s statement not so much as using the word Nigger to denote black people, but rather reading the concept of “Nigger” into Obama’s sentiments. In other words, Jackson is saying that Obama is showing that he regards the black community as worthy of the epithet “nigger.”
Like if I said to a black person, “Oh, I guess you’re going to show the cracker how it’s done?” (Where “the cracker” refers to me.) I’m not using the term “cracker” to disparage white people, but rather, I am ascribing to the black person I’m talking to the sentiment that leads to the use of the term “cracker.”
-FrL-
Speaking as someone who has had the N-word used against me that way multiple times, it, while perhaps not being racist, is still very offensive.
But both men are black.
A closer analogy would be where you said “cracker” (refering to yourself) while talking to another white person. (Maybe that other person is a dreaded “Yankee”.)
You’re right John, this is racism. A black man in America can call another black man a nigger and get away with it. Jay-Z and Kanye West can even sell a couple million albums doing it. You and I, as white men, are discriminated against in this instance, and perhaps this is wrong. On the other hand, a typical black family in America makes about 60% as much, on average, as a typical white family. Given the opportunity to choose between these two forms of discrimination, which would you rather endure?
I’d be willing to bet that if and when we overcome real racism the symbolic nonsense will work itself out.
Interesting take, though I think Koxinga was closer. I think Jesse will try (or is trying) to “get behind” some “real niggas” who ain’t into “the man” tellin them how to behave.
Facts seem to be that Jesse Sr. isn’t comfortable because Barack won’t kiss his ass and won’t kow-tow to the politics of hate that made JJ that big pile of cashola he’s sitting on. Same goes, I think, for Wright. Both of them are insignificant against Baracks’ campaign and against what he claims to stand for, so the only way to make the waves and rise above it is to say outlandish and outrageous things, even things that are the opposite of what you claim to stand for.
One question: would the fact that Jackson apparently didn’t know the microphone was on and thought it was a private exchange, then when this came out, immediately tried to re-spin what he had said change your interpretation of this particular event?
Not agreeing or disagreeing with you here.
I don’t buy it. I think Jackson knows when the mic is hot and when it’s not, he knows where he is and what he’s up to all the time. A person in his position has to. So I don’t think this was a “private conversation on a mic he didn’t know was hot” I think it was something he came up with before hand (though I think the content was on the spur of the moment) knowing he would get attention just because he was at Fox.
My guess is that if this were at CNN, we’d never have heard it.
I have to agree with 5-4-Fighting and, in a way, Diogenes. I think it was intended to be a personal exchange between Jackson and the other man. However, it turned out not to be. Jackson should know better, but he had a critical discretion failure here (not his first, nor most egregious). I’m sure his words were meant colloquially, and in a crude but jocular way, out of frustration and annoyance and not true anger. It definitely was not meant to be publicized as it has been. Sure, Jackson supports Obama, but Obama also ticks him off, and he doesn’t agree with everything he says, despite his public face of “unequivocal support.” I’m sure this is true of a lot of candidates’ high profile supporters, but not all of them shoot their mouths off in a stage whisper in front of a hot mic on FOX.
Bottom line: Jackson was an idiot in this situation, and no amount of spinning after the fact is going to change that everyone knows what he said now. As much as I am not a fan of FOX, seriously, how could they, especially, but any network not run this? It’s as newsworthy as any of the crap that’s making the rounds these days, and more titillating than most.
Given Jackson’s demeanor during the exchange and extreme efforts at re-spinning what he said, I think the more likely scenario is that Fox deliberately left the mike on to see if they could catch something that they could make hay with and use to create a few days’ worth of headlines.
This seems especially true because of the way they released part of it, teased us with the rest and then somehow the true transcript of what was said got leaked.
Jackson has said many intentionally headline-grabbing things in the past with no hesitation. Why not just come and say he disagreed with Obama’s Father’s Day speech?
Even if this was something he believed about Obama and wanted to get attention with by going “public” instead of privately telling him, why go through all the sotto voce subterfuge, back-pedaling and loss of face? He’s been sullied by this; so if he was going to be sullied anyway, why conduct himself in such a slithery way for nothing?
Barring a statement from a Fox employee to that effect, I call bullshit. I’ve done wiring jobs with microphones and it’s always easier to leave the mike on (and turned down) than risk shutting it off and not being able (for some pain-in-the-ass reason) to get it started again. Also, you don’t want the guy giving the presentation to start talking into a dead mike when you’re not watching, because he’ll start fucking around with it, trying to make it work, and screwing it up in the process.
I do not see that there is any true discrimination, (using your phrase as a starting point for my comments and not challenging you, particularly).
I would agree with John Mace that the rules should be “the same” for everyone, but I think many folks are looking at the rules in the wrong way. The rules are based in “in group” and “out group,” not on race. Race is an inadvertant set of baggage based in American history that confuses the issue.
It is not true that if it is OK for a black person to use the word “nigger,” then it is OK for a white person to use the word “nigger.” However, it is also true that it is not automatic racism for a white to use the word “nigger.”
Let’s step away from race for a moment. In the 1960s in Detroit, the ethnic groups in the white community that were the butts of the most jokes were the descendants of Italian and Polish immigrants. I had lots of classmates whose parents or grandparents were immigrants from Italy or Poland. The derogatory “Wop” and “Polack” were the most frequent ethnic slurs for those people. Now, you could get a fight going pretty easily by calling someone “Wop” or “Polack,” whereas calling me (or anyone sharing my ethnic background) “Kraut” or “Mick” would get no more than a shrug and a “Yeah, I am, so what?” response.
So, there are some ethnic terms that can rile up people because they have current meaning as slurs while other ethnic terms carry no such baggage.*
Within those communities, a number of people used the terms as friendly insults, employing the logic and practice of drawing the sting from a weapon by employing it as a joke. Occasionally they were employed ironically. At other times they were used as actual insults in the sense that You are so bad/dumb/messed up that you actually provide evidence for those outsiders who regard us in this hateful way. Others within those communities always regarded such terms as insults, regardless who used them or why, and treated the words as taboo, prohibited from any use.
Given that, it was still true that I could get away with calling Stan or Luigi “Polack” or “Wop” as long as they knew and I knew that it was intended as friendly banter. (They had no ethnic slur to use against me, so they were liable to resort to questioning my intelligence or parentage or sexual identity, but within the realm of friendly banter, I had an insult that I could employ without serious offense.)
Thus, we do need to consider context as a mitigating factor. I might call Stan a dumb Polack, but I had better not call him that in front of his Dad (unless I had also established a similar level of friendship and respect with his father). I would certainly have been excoriated had I referred to Polacks or Wops if I was making a speech or being interviewed. Such general slurs would have been considered grossly rude behavior in any context outside the friendly banter of established friendships. Similarly, if I used such a slur to a friend (acceptably to them) in a locale where it would have been overheard by some person outside our cohort, I would have been perceived to have been rude. When a new person entered our class, I often saw situations where the use of such slurs, long accepted by the principals, was hostilely challenged by a newcomer.
Bringing it back to “race” and “nigger,” we see the same rules. Some significant number of persons (of all ethnic backgrounds) look at the history of the word “nigger” and consider it outside the pale on every occasion. Some others, mostly within the population of blacks, but occasionally including a non-black who has established a friendship with some number of blacks, employ it as a way to display the comfort level of their friendship (we are such close friends that I can even call you a terrible name without giving offense). On the other hand, no one outside the group–or who has not been admitted to some small, friendly subset of the group) can employ thwe word without giving offense.
Diogenese is wrong when he insists that no white person may ever use “nigger” without being racist, but all the calls for "equality’ or “the same rules” are really pretty dumb unless one has actually established a relationship with a particular set of individuals who accept one’s use of the term. (And, if there does not happen to be a reciprocal slur that people can employ against the speaker, that just demonstrates that there is not perfect reciprocity in the world.)
I agree Tom. My point was simply that discussions of race and discrimination in this country are pretty much always about language and never about actual disparities in quality of life. As long as our focus is on the symbolism of the issue and not the issue itself, it seems unlikely that anything will change.
If I have an education and a job, I don’t really give a damn what you call me.
Yeah, there are about 100,000,000 more linguistic travesties I care more about than this one. Use the word however you want, etiquette has always been governed by social convention. If you want to rebel against social etiquette I think you should march into a restaurant shirtless and demand to be served. Etiquette really only matters based upon who hears you say it and speaks up to object. Lots of white people use the word nigger when surrounded by other white people, whether they have an affinity for it or not. I don’t know why this double standard even bothers people. Who cares?
What about when Chinese people say “nigga”? (Video.)
How black do you have to be? Is it ok for Obama to say it? Could I get a pass too if I could prove a drop of black blood?
Check out http://youtube.com/watch?v=3HWXej9N8Vg snippet they had an entertaining argument with Whoopi and that other woman whose name I don’t know saying that it’s okay for black people to use the word but not white people.
As far as I’m concerned, Jackson was expressing his anger and frustration.
Obambi didn’t use the word in his “should” speeches…he just treats the listeners as n-words by lecturing them.
It’s not just black people though. He does it to everyone, it’s who he is. He recently lectured folks to stop worrying about immigrants learning English and instead focus on them learning Spanish and their kids.
How many languages does Obama speak again? How many do his kids speak?
What a n-word (nincompoop, that is 
)
P.S. You have no idea if it’s racist when a white person says it or not. You’d have to know what’s intended and felt by the white person saying it. You don’t.
You must have missed it … white people are presumed to be racist; black people cannot be racist.