Ta-Nehisi Coates on the N-word as “the border, the signpost that reminds us that the old crimes don…

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the N-word as “the border, the signpost that reminds us that the old crimes don’t disappear”

At the New York Times, Ta-Nehisi Coates does the Lord’s work and gives us a great article to be surreptitiously emailed to family members under the Thanksgiving table if anyone brings up Richie Incognito or any of the other recent sports-world controversies surrounding what is, according to a foundation promoting diversity in the NFL, “the worst and most derogatory word ever spoken in our country.” Coates comes to the word’s (qualified) defense:

Within the boundaries of community relationships, words — often ironic and self-deprecating — are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.

A few summers ago one of my best friends invited me up to what he affectionately called his “white-trash cabin” in the Adirondacks. This was not how I described the outing to my family. Two of my Jewish acquaintances once joked that I’d “make a good Jew.” My retort was not, “Yeah, I certainly am good with money.” Gay men sometimes laughingly refer to one another as “faggots.” My wife and her friends sometimes, when having a good time, will refer to one another with the word “bitch.” I am certain that should I decide to join in, I would invite [a] hard conversation.

He brings it in hard at the end:

The desire to ban the word “nigger” is not anti-racism, it is finishing school […] That such a seemingly hateful word should return as a marker of nationhood and community confounds our very notions of power. “Nigger” is different because it is attached to one of the most vibrant cultures in the Western world. And yet the culture is inextricably linked to the violence that birthed us. “Nigger” is the border, the signpost that reminds us that the old crimes don’t disappear. It tells white people that, for all their guns and all their gold, there will always be places they can never go.

[NYTimes]