A hurried meditation on the n-word.

Today in my sociology class we were talking about words and how they can be used to put minorities or groups with a lesser social status down (ie homosexuals and females). Then we got onto the n-word. I don't understand the n-word. I mean, I get that it has a significant, painful history behind it and I can understand never wanting to hear that word again. What I don't understand it the implied reality that African Americans can use the word and white people cannot.

There is this comedian, I can't remember his name, he's a white guy and he tells this story: He was stopped after a show and someone asked him why white people couldn't use the n-word and black people could. He says "Well I guess we haven't used it that well in the past." This is true. But why is it that a word with so much painful history would then be used excessively in pop culture, even if it is by those who it was initially created to put down? Would it not be easier to simply let it slip into the annexes of history as one more piece of human history that should and will remain in the past?

I think what gets me most about this is the explicit racism that the n-word represents. When it was in its first heyday it was a word that was racist against African Americans. Now it is racist against European Americans. How? In that it denies them something based on their skin color. A black person can call a white person an n-word, but a white person can't even say the word in an academic environment without fearing repercussions of some kind. The use of classic literature in certain schools is disputed by frightened parents because the n-word is used occasionally but a black rapper can use the n-word more than any other word in a rap song without worrying about how it will be received. When there is a clear division of what is acceptable and what is not drawn between two races, one can not possibly label it as anything but racist, but because it is the white person who is at the disadvantage, no one is willing to even suggest that it is racist to keep the n-word out of the mouths of white people.

Personally, I would rather just get rid of the n-word altogether than integrate it into everyone's vocabulary. What I don't understand is that there is no other group that has discriminatory words used against them that has not mainstreamed those words, supposedly to their advantage. Bitch and the faggot, for example, are almost to the level where they are acceptable terms and in a few more generations I wouldn't be surprised to find them no worse than "fool" or "jerk." I am convinced that this is because females and homosexuals took those two words and abused them amongst themselves and with others until they were the ones who controlled the words, not others, and they invited people from other groups to use those words in a light way as well. The words are obviously still be used offensively, but if the power is taken out of a word it will gradually become less and less offensive. I see no such future for the n-word. The power of the n-word is being perpetuated rather than challenged and overturned.

What bothers me more than anything is that when I try to understand the double standards set by the n-word and those who perpetuate it I leave feeling like a racist and with no more answers that I had in the beginning. Questions are answered intelligently at first, but when the discussion reaches a certain point the answers become redundant and meaningless. It is normally something that can be boiled down to "You didn't grow up around it so you don't understand." Everything is explainable and sometimes it is the very act of explaining something that helps us understand how little (or how much) foundation there is to what we believe or think.

The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any explicit reason for the unevenness in n-word usage, which leads me to think that there is no reason, and if there is no reason something should be done to change it. But I can't initiate this change because I'm white and I don't even have a right to have opinions about the n-word.

Someone please tell me how we are making any progress towards equality when we have things as simple as a word dividing us.