More on Schlessinger, Palin’s comments, ctd.

I was glad to learn yesterday from Sarah Palin that it’s actually the conservatives who are the victims of the liberals, the government and nasty critics, not necessarily the actual homeless, downtrodden, unemployed and uninsured folks in this country, for what do they matter when Reps can seize upon yet another opportunity to rail against their political nemeses? In defending Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s recent and multiple uses of the word, “nigger” — a use that I, as it happens, mostly defended as well — (That is, I defended her freedom to use the word in an honest debate about language. I obviously don’t defend her berating attitude toward the caller, nor her obnoxiousness in saying the word over and over just to irritate the caller.) — Palin even frames a recent Facebook post thusly: “Defending the Fight to Cast off a Conservative’s ‘Shackles’.”

Palin’s choice of the word “shackles” is enlightening as much as it is ironic and offensive, since “shackles” is often used in speaking of slavery, and the central issue here is about Schlessinger’s use of the word “nigger,” but I doubt Palin is far-sighted enough to catch the nuance. Also, speaking of modern conservatives in any analogous context alongside slaves is laughable, in the best case, and utterly contemptible, in the worst.

And here is a recent Twitter post by Palin:

Dr.Laura:don’t retreat…reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence”isn’t American,not fair”)

Now, commentators on cable news shows this afternoon (Aug. 19) were conjecturing over what Palin might have meant by the word “reload!”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, for instance, thought “reload!” meant that Palin was advocating the continued use of questionable and derogatory language to egg on black folks. I’m not quite with him there. Actually, I’m convinced that Palin didn’t really know what she meant by “reload!” other than some very ambiguous, big-feeling, neoconservative woman-power term to encourage Schlessinger to fight a good fight, whatever that might mean. Again, Palin knows not.

Post script: While I’m at it, Palin also in a separate Facebook post said she was “traveling with Greta Van Susteren to Alaska’s North Slope and ANWR to discuss how developing our resources can contribute to America’s energy independence, security, job growth, and economic stability.”

Traveling with? That’s peculiar. And any guesses as to where Susteran works? The answer is obvious and foxy. See previous post.

Language, racism, Schlessinger, ctd.

I probably never would have thought that I would be writing about radio host Laura Schlessinger twice in a mere five days, but here goes.

She has come under recent scrutiny for saying the word “nigger,” with the “I” fully in place more than 10 times while talking about the use of the word with a black caller on her show. The two were having conversation, at times, a heated one, on the use of the word “nigger” in black culture and how “nigga” is quite different than “nigger.” ((http://emptysuit.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/dr-laura-schlesingers-nigger-rant-transcript/)) ((http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/will-dr-laura-survive-her-racial-rant/19592675))

Nigger originated from the word, “niger,” and most likely evolved to “nigger” because of Southern slave owners’ mispronunciation of the correct word. “Niger” simple meant black person, but in the 17th century, as the slave trade got under way, it quickly came to mean slave, as there weren’t too many nigers in the colonies that weren’t also slaves. ((http://www.abolishthenword.com/history.htm))

I, for one, think all of this might be just splitting hairs a bit. Rappers and black youths freely say “nigga” in conversation and in songs without thinking twice about it, and the full enunciation of the other version isn’t banished in white nor black comedy or from neither cultures. From the comedy side, see skits from Dave Chappelle (black) and Louis C.K. (white) (The Louis C.K. skit contains mature content). Actually, C.K. said he was more offended by white people saying “the N-word” more than the actual word because “that’s just white people getting away with saying ‘nigger'” and “when you say the N-word, you put the word nigger in the listeners head. That’s what saying a word is.”

The connotation behind the word “nigger” is terrible, slavery was an awful blight on the history of not just this country, but human history, and the sooner racism ceases to exist the better. But doesn’t it say something about how far we’ve come since the dark days of the slave trade that a white person can objectively say that word without a hint of any racist connotation and not get branded a racist (Surely, some blacks folks were in attendance for the above-linked C.K. show). Further, and this applies to supposed “curse words” as well, when did words begin to hold such mastery over us. Didn’t we create language and isn’t language at our service, not the other way around? That’s not to say that folks shouldn’t be sensitive to those connotations because, as Chappelle said prior to the above-linked, all kinds of feelings come up when black people hear that word. But a person like Schlessinger or C.K. or myself uttering the word in, what I think is akin to honest debate about language, and not in any racial context, seems unexceptionable.