(hand raised) “yes, Pierce?” Pierce: yea, Please stop saying Nigger
Location: Pan-African Literatures, a graduate seminar class here at Syracuse University. This week’s book: Nobel Prize Laureate Toni Morrison’s story of passion, identity, conflict and love, Tar Baby, presented by *white colleague who shall remain nameless-we’ll give him/her the nice androgynous name, “Jesse”. In Jesse’s presentation of the book, Tar Baby (s)he let the word, Nigger roll of his/her tongue several times, quoting casually from the text-at one point soliciting contributions from the class to read explicit passages laden with the word, Nigger in order to depict the various levels of race relations at play in Morrison’s masterfully constructed storyline. Now. I acknowledge that the word was not being used in a derogatory manner, and furthermore, in the context of an intellectual debate we sometimes need to address and even quote objectionable literature. However, we must also acknowledge that some Black students (especially southern boys like myself) aren’t comfortable with white students, or white professors for that matter, bouncing the term Nigger around like a hackey sac-regardless of the context.
Especially in this scenario, where our friend Jesse couples his/her generous offering of the term Nigger, with the judgment that Tar Baby’s main character, Jadine was “not authentically Black” indeed Jadine, in our presenter’s opinion, was not a Black girl at all, she was “a White, Black girl”. The audacity of ANY person, who would claim to hold authority on one’s authenticity as a Black woman is honestly staggering, and to add insult to injury by allowing the word Nigger bounce off his/her tongue like a #$%ing jolly rancher was almost more than I could handle… but I digress.
The reason I am addressing this issue here on Blackademics, is not to complain that I was offended. Instead, I want to open a dialogue about how we go about negotiating these issues. Do I have a right to object to Jesse using the word Nigger, even in an intellectual environment? What if (excuse my racism) Jesse were Jerome? That is to say-would there be less tension if a Black person used the word Nigger in a similar context? If so, Why?
Published on November 7, 2006 at 10:22 pm.
20 Comments.
Filed under academia, ignorance.
