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Burying Words
By Nancy Lindquist | July 10, 2007
Yesterday, the NAACP “buried” the N word. In a ceremony befitting the death of a statesman, they paraded up Woodward Avenue in Detroit and made a spectacle of it.
Please understand me. I find that word to be abhorrent, disgusting, filled with hate and loathsome on all levels. I find people who use it to be of no use to me personally and I will not associate with them. I loathe racism, sexism and the dislike of anyone because of their religious and sexual preference to be intolerable on all levels. In other words, the N word is not a word I would use, nor is it a word I will condone anyone around me using.
So, what I am about to say next is going to come as a huge shock to anyone who knows me. I was very bothered by the, “burial” of the word.
I’m a writer. Someone who holds words in high esteem. I find words filled with love and joy to be precious. I find words filled with hate to be just as jewel-like. Angry, nasty, disgusting words are part of who we are, but more importantly, they are part of who we were.
I am, in many ways, shaped by my angry past as much as my loving past. Sexually molested as a young girl, dealing with my alcoholic and sometimes verbally abusive father, I am this woman you see before you because of that, as much as the tender and loving touch of my mother. I have done things, things I am horribly ashamed of and I wish, with all my heart, that I could remove that part of myself. Not because it’s not helped me grow. Rather, it’s a cancer I don’t want to look at.
I cannot remove my terrible moments it and examining them has taught me much. Like the N word, my past horrors bring home to me a time that I would not repeat, yet I cannot easily kill a part of what has shaped me.
I worry that forbidding any word is the first step on a slippery slope that we may already be tumbling down. Great Britain has cameras watching it’s citizens and now, and the government is encouraging neighbors to watch for signs of suspicious behavior and to turn one another in. Removal of words, turning in neighbors, cameras always watching. 1984 came later than we thought, but almost as predicted.
Certainly, some words should not be used. So if we should not use them, shouldn’t we get rid of them?
Because we have not always been racially aware and are not now, in many ways, we need to keep an eye on our past. Racism exists and removing a word cannot change that. Another will crop up in its place. More subtle perhaps. More cliquish. Removing a word will not start, or continue a dialog we, as Americans, desperately need to have. More than ever whites are fleeing mixed neighborhoods. Brown vs. The Board of Education is almost a dim memory and we are ignoring the sins of our past as we forge ahead, full steam with large boots set to stomp out a word, believing we are changing the face of racism by changing language. Boldly stating we are color blind, when we are not.
True change is mixed churches where worship is not about race, but filled with love and exuberance. True change is mixed schools, with everyone receiving an equal education from the public school system, regardless of race, religion or socioeconomic status. True change is turning to your neighbor and helping them, without regard to their color, or sexuality. True equality cannot be set forth by the banning of a word. The change must not be superficial, rather deep and heartfelt and it must be soon, if we are to avoid the sins of our past.
Xenophobia is best overcome, like all phobias are, by consistent good experiences with that which we are afraid.
The banning of a word will not change a society. The banning of a word may shine a temporary spotlight on the problem, but lights burn out, memory is lost and we repeat our own horrors.
We went into World War II, in many ways, to stop an atrocity. Yet, genocide is being ignored all over the world.
We forget our past, disrespect our ancestors and in that forgetting we repeat. Like a broken record, humanity treats those around us with disdain and even loathing. A word is but a small symbol of that. The calls to the funeral of racism will not be sounded until we, all peoples, stand up and say no more. Until our voices shout from the mountain tops. Until we do not bury the N word, but drown it out. Deep change that shake the foundations of humanity cannot come from a death, only a birth.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
You are correct. A “burial” of a word cannot stop a feeling or action. Only through good will, good actions , and understanding can travasties, such as genocide, fade from our societal fiber. Cheers Nancy and thanks for stopping.
July 11th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Well said.