Let’s call in the I-word. Ironic.
That’s a word I would associate with Paula Deen, celebrity-chef-turned-racial-piñata because of her N-word past.
Imagine, she never earned this much societal scorn for foisting her artery-clogging, fat-salt-and-sugar-skewed, Southern “comfort food” recipes on so many American palates and plates. She should have been rebuked as Public Enabler No. 1 for her Gooey Butter Cake contribution to corpulent America.
Ironically, she has Type 2 diabetes. Hypocritically, she represented a drug company that markets a diabetes-management program. Talk about being a target.
But, Lardy, Lardy, she certainly has been skewered over deposition outtakes where she has admitted to privately referencing “Nigger of the ‘Narcissus'” sans “of the ‘Narcissus.'” Apologies to Joseph Conrad, who was merely known for the richness of his prose.
Now this “I-is-what-I-is” culinary clown has prompted yet another “conversation” about the N- word. And once again the focus is on something that doesn’t really advance racial communication or introspection. It trivializes it. Further.
That’s because any meaningful movement on the ultimate racial-and-racist code word has to start with its main public purveyors: African-Americans. If it doesn’t start there, ironically, nothing will change.
To be sure, a homey shout-out or some self-deprecation among brothers of color isn’t the same as a snarling white insult. Of course it isn’t. But once N.W.A. (“Niggaz Wit Attitude”) popularized “gangsta” rap in the 1980s, we’ve been on this linguistic and sociological slippery slope. The result is a blind-sided society whose often thuggish, misogynistic, rap sub-culture is riddled with N-words and F-bombs. It’s benumbing, desensitizing, ubiquitous–and seemingly no longer so sub.
For real-world context, we should recall the experience of the late comedy icon Richard Pryor, whose early routines and albums gratuitously trafficked in the word “nigger.” He thought “ownership” would somehow salve the epithet’s sting.
Pryor later learned to loathe the word as demeaning and saw the ironic, counterproductive upshot of its broader use. He realized he had inadvertently helped others–with agendas unlike his– rationalize its use. He stopping using it in public and criticized its hip-hop exploitation.
When it comes to the N-word, Pryor should be the focus and a role model. Deen should be the last word on dumplings.