A refreshing and to-the-point commentary on Dr. Laura, the “n-word” and hypocrisy. I have one word for Ms. Wall–the “b-word” — as in “Brava.” And do please click through and read the whole thing.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger boldly went where no one but the hypocritical black elite can boldly go. For that, she deserves respect, not ridicule.
While the good doctor used a word so forbidden that it has been relegated to rappers and street slingers, she brought attention to an issue worth addressing once and for all. It’s talked about in beauty salons, barbershops, urban radio shows and at black family reunions. But not out loud.
She may not be the “right” messenger for some. But it’s about time someone other than self-righteous finger-pointing liberals brought this issue out into the open…
Why is it permissible for blacks to call ourselves ni**as and then get indignant at the very thought that someone of a lighter hue even mouth the word negro? When will we get indignant about the fact that so many of us still use de-humanizing lazy slang as common-speak instead of calling a “brutha” or a “sista” by a more appropriate moniker? Sometimes, we’ll even give permission for a white person who has an urban sway to sing it or say it. But it’s generally off-limits.
So, why is it that anyone should be allowed to use the n-word? If, as the argument goes, it’s not acceptable for some, it shouldn’t be acceptable for anyone. And that is the point that Dr. Laura was trying to make. If her use of the word (over and over) got the public’s attention, well that was the point now, wasn’t it?
It’s ironic that the collective “we” spend so much time feigning outrage over a non-approved politically-incorrect person’s use of the n-word, without considering the context in which that person uttered it. Dr. Laura was bold enough to bring a very pertinent issue to the surface. Yet, as usual, all pundits (including some conservatives) and snake oil civil rights puppets can do is divert attention away from her point in order to make theirs. Even if you believe that Schlessinger is a racist, which no really believes, isn’t the point she made — that no one should be able to say the word ni**a — a valid one? […]
It is ridiculous that airtime is wasted calling this woman a racist while actions of real racists (black and white) are ignored. We shouldn’t be having useless discussions over the punishment of an otherwise highly-respected expert who has the audacity to call it like it is.
Racism is not the mere mention of a word deemed taboo. It is a behavior of the heart. Instead of banishing Dr. Laura, we should be banishing the n-word. Stop giving it more power than it deserves.
Related link:
She is good looking too!!
Tara needs to rethink her conclusion. Word banishing is a form of tyranny, even if the word is offensive.
Wrong! The whole idea of keeping this inappropriate word with “feigned outrage” is not only hypocritical but it is also one more component of the “victim” status. If it–or any word–is so outrageous and offensive–NO ONE should use it. PERIOD. Explain to me how you tell your four-year-old who over hears this on the street that it is okay for some, offensive and outrageous for others! The so-called outrage is nothing more than a way to CONTROL the white population who is forbidden to use the “word.” In Grad School, I found my Language & Gender class equally hypocritical when they explained to me that all racial slurs were okay if the person using them was part of that group. I disagree. If some word is outrageous, inappropriate, forbidden–NO ONE should be using it.
Brains and beauty too. What a powerhouse.
Hey Tammy ..take a look at this youtube video of Pres. Bush welcoming our heroes home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOC_JjNFkVw&feature=popular
Awesome video, Rob. Thanks for sharing.
Blacks are not held to the same performance and behavioral standards as whites, because whenever they are, stark racial differences appear that contradict the liberal fantasy that we are all the same. So blacks are infantilised, given artificial boosts to admit them to colleges whose entrance standards they cannot meet, and to promote them into jobs they cannot perform competently. They are allowed to behave in ways that whites are not because the elites that establish these double standards don’t take blacks seriously. Given these conditions, why should blacks take themselves seriously or treat each other with respect? Why struggle to better yourself when society will give you free goodies no matter how bad you are? Cut loose these artificial props and blacks will sink until they find their own level in society. Hold them to the same standards as whites and they will be forced to shape up, and we’ll see more Allen West’s and fewer gang bangers.
Well stated!
You are so right on this!!! As someone who is black, I get so angry when standards are lowered for blacks. This is what affirmative action is. Lower standards for blacks because they can’t hack, so that they can have a “chance”. I always think of how Fredrick Douglass, Booker T. Washington or Martin Luther King, Jr. would react to this notion of dumbing down standards for blacks because of racism. This is so twisted. I’ve done so much research on the intellectual thought of Douglass and Washington, both of whom were born into slavery. They would rightly be horrified of what has happened to blacks in this country. Washington was able to foresee over 100 years ago the race hustler industry that has ruined blacks in this country. There’s a subculture that literally cannot function in or meritocracy/individualistic society. He knew that these hustlers would be a detriment to black success in this country.
And George Washington Carver, born into slavery, was probably one of the greatest botanists ever. He never whined, griped, or complained about his lot in life. He just trusted God (he was a devout Christian), worked hard, and became one of the best at his field.
And an exact opposite of the “dumbing down” would be WW2’s 99th Squadron, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen. For them, the standards kept getting raised in order to try to make them fail. They kept meeting the standards. As a result, they were some of the greatest fighter pilots of that war.
Garrett Morgan never complained either. He used his natural mechanical skill to invent the traffic signal and the gas mask. He also became a successful business man.
Todays black people have opportunities that black people from the past could never have imagined. So, why do so many of them think they deserve to have life handed to them on a silver platter?
Let me say Larry, I disagree with your primary point–“Blacks are not held to the same performance and behavioral standards as whites, because whenever they are, stark racial differences appear that contradict the liberal fantasy that we are all the same” which seems to say blacks don’t do as well because of their race, but *then* at the end you assert if standards were not lowered and people were challenged, people would do better (as is the case with all of us).
Your first point is racialist, the assertion that blacks don;t do well *because* of their complexion. I argue blacks, in general, have not been held to the same standards *because* societal racialism projected onto them, this notion that they wouldn’t do well so society must compromise to artificially elevate, which is the point you making later, but you can’t have it both ways. There is a point, of course, where if an argument is pounded into the people long enough (you need the white man’s help, you’re all a bunch of racists, you need government’s help to survive, America is evil, etc), many are bound to accept the false argument as truth, aka conditioning.
If there is a difference when it comes to performance standards it is obvious that it’s not because of complexion, but because of generations of the left (and the right) pounding into society that blacks need that supposed benevolent helping hand offered by the generous White Man. Its the same *racist* approach we see with McCain and his attitude toward Mexicans–“God’s children” who need to be helped along. No wonder he has no problem with the creation of a de-facto slave class in this country again, this time in the form of the little Brown “God’s children” who will “do the work Americans won;t do.” That’s been obscene from the beginning. Blacks, browns and all the rest have been abused and abandoned by the *elites* in the *world,* not just in the U.S, but here too (including if I may say white people, after all this is about the political and cultural elite who believe they are better than everyone else. The foundational support for Obama’s “bitter and clingy” assessment of average Americans).
And re Allen West, that is a man who was raised within his *family’s* set of values, allowed to develop a sense of himself within that structure, not within society’s structure. Faith, family, and traditional values played a role in his upbringing, and it’s that focus, as I am finding, that makes great Americans of all complexions.
Anyhoo…I wanted to, in all honesty, point out your contradiction and perhaps clarify with the elements I do agree with. T
♥♥ Tammy ♥ ♥ I LOVE it. I couldn’t agree with you more on the point of blacks being held to a lower standard and, as such, are NOT equal. The suppression or a group of people, identified by theirs skin color, by their own and by liberals is the cause of their failure to achieve equality.
The color of their skin has nothing to do with the inequality other than that of being an identifier for those who want to keep them down.
As Ayn Rand wrote in “Anthem”:
“But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word “I,” could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.”
As long as individuals, through the senseless battling of “us” vs. “them”, continue to diminish themselves and every sacred other born briefly into this wonderful world, each and every one of us will be condemned to suffer at the hands of all the manmade misery that inevitably follows. If we sacrifice an “I” for an “I” then we will all be blind.
if half the attention was paid and half the outrage generated over real harmful degrading actions against people rather than the use of certain words by random older white ladies and stupid marble mouthed republican politicians. i was raised in a multiracial family. i’m not deluded into thinking we’re in utopia now and no racism exists. i’m just aware that its prejudiced acts not random words that deserve the attention . those destructive acts can fester and thrive in the shadows while people argue the ethics of single words and who can use them. how elected politicians use race and racially charged concepts and words should be more of a concern than what comes out of dr. laura’s mouth.
i don’t know dr. laura from anyone- it’s not a show i would ever listen to. but she was good to tammy and showed she had principles- that’s good enough for me. i was upset at the liberal media during the last administration and the last elections using words and images with real racist intent- like calling black members of bush’s cabinet uncle toms and aunt jemimas. that was racist and meant to be by context- they were seeking to degrade people based on their skin color . but certain people are allowed to use racist speech and content as long as they do not have specific political views, sometimes even if their skins are white. the white man who marveled that obama was actually ‘clean’ is now vice president. the white man who pontificated about using’ negro dialect’ when necessary is the senate leader. but dr. laura, a citizen not on the tax payer dime, is the problem- the great white devil because of her use or abuse of language concerning race?
i live in a house that was bought with the hard earned money of 2 freed slaves- long before barney frank and his mortgage schemes and any sort of government welfare programs existed. i have this feeling that those who had been slaves , who had actually seen a real lynching, wouldn’t be fashioning nooses and hanging them on their doors to make white people look bad, as if we are still in that horrible place in time and have made no advancements whatsoever concerning race. i have a feeling having been slaves they wouldn’t dissolve into non existence or raving self righteousness if they heard some small older white woman say the n word. maybe they’d be more concerned with the economic state of the inner cities and it’s intraracial violence, the children with no parenting and their own people using the most disgusting degrading language- language born directly out of the legacy of the slavery of africans in this country- when referring to each other . perhaps they’d be more sickened and saddened by those proudly acting out the most absurd of truly racist stereotypes- that of the ultraviolent uneducated animalistic criminal black male, the now celebrated gangsta, with the accompaniment of hypersexualized , demeaned bitches and hos. other races don’t have to degrade you through language and culture when you’re doing it all on your own on such a breathtaking scale. when you’ve no respect for yourself, others will have no respect for you not because of your skin color necessarily but because of your self belittling behavior is an invitation .
actual racists never had a better cover for their activities nor justification for their prejudices than the misidentifying of all manner of incidents and speech as racist and the misdirection it fosters. and politicians never had a better vehicle for manipulation. it’s the furthest thing from empowerment i can imagine . no one is set free by perpetrating a lie, a lie whose flames are continuously fanned by the sad handful of individuals who derive benefit from it’s agitation at the expense of all the real advances made by real civil rights leaders and at the expense of the well being of the communities they claim to represent.