The "N-Word"...Again

     *Sigh* Countless discussions, debates, arguments have led nowhere apparently. I cannot recall how many times I have had this discussion with numerous people to no avail. And the word "nigger" keeps creeping up to the consciousness of our society again and again. This time, talk radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger is the bad guy who dared to not just utter the word, but blurt it out...over and over again. Eleven times, to be exact. After years and years of this issue being pummeled and beaten unconscious by society, it still has not died. In fact, I'm forced to accept that many white people, unbeknownst to us black people, use the word.
    
     Honestly, why should we blame them? Why are we being so hypocritical and childish, demanding that we have free use of the word to our hearts content yet no one else should have the audacity to merely think about using the word. Can't we just retire it completely?

     What do we really get out of using that word? A lot of black people defend the usage, saying they are reclaiming the word when it just appears to me that they are simply keeping it alive. When a white guy is listening to rap music in the privacy of his bedroom, do you think he skips over the n-word knowing that no one is around? And what happens if he then accidently blurts it out while no longer in the confines of his room? He's a racist, right?

     Some black people even now put their own twist on what the word means. I recall back in middle school I was friends with an Asian girl who was well-known among the black community as "one of us." She talked like us, dressed like us, listened to the same music, and lived in the same poverty. One day, as a group of us were standing around checking out the cute guys passing by she  shouted out, "Damn, that nigga is fine!"

     I looked around immediately, fearing that the black girls around her would be angry, but no one seemed to mind. I later approached on of my black friends who had witnessed the occasion and asked why that didn't bother her. "Who cares?" she said. "'Nigga' is just another way of saying 'good-looking guy'."

     It seems that every black person has a different  opinion about the word, and that's when the debate gets messy. After reading a post on theroot.com about the incident with Dr. Laura, I must admit they made a good point: Why do we give people like that the power to work our nerves?

     Dr. Laura has since quit her radio show because of all the backlash from the word, but why do we allow that word to get us so riled up? And it does give them an awful lot of power knowing that by merely uttering that one word, they can ruin our entire day. What people neglected was that in the same day, Dr. Laura went on to accuse the majority of the black population for voting for Obama only because of his race.

     People were so blinded by the word, that they failed to recognize how much more insulting that is to our intelligence and our integrity. We don't just vote for any black person who runs for office. Condoleeza Rice is a black person, however, she does not have much support from the black community. Why? Because black people tend to be Democrats and vote that way.

     I'm retiring this issue for now with this final thought: It's not that serious. Stop using it if you don't want to hear it. Enough already.