BLOG: PERSPECTIVE OF GOD

You know when I first heard CNN and MSNBC discussing President Obama’s use of the word “nigger,” I thought, he might have called some black person that name and that… was what was causing the uproar.   When I heard the context in which he used the term, I said, “You have got to be kidding. You mean to tell me this is all “the news” you people have to talk about.”

First of all, where is the news worthiness in the fact that he did use the term in discussing the issue of race in this country.  It is a word that was used by white people to speak about black people in a very vile & derogatory way.   It was used by these white people because they thought they were better than black people.  Oh yeah,  they thought they were “superior” to black people because to them black people weren’t  reeeeeeally people.  This is the truth… plain and simple.    It’s like President Obama is being chastised for using a word because “white folk” used it in the past to relegate “black folk” to a less than human status.  People please…let’s get real and stay real!  I am tired of this dilly dallying crap being put down by folk who don’t even understand.  Let me tell you what I mean by this.

President Obama is a black man who has experienced racist behavior by white people.   While I wasn’t there when it happened, I would dare to say that being the age he is,  he probably had a few white folk call him that name a time or two (at least…what’s your guess?).   Now… with that being said,  what gives anyone the right to tell this grown man when he can use the word “nigger” when talking about race issues?  Simply put, it is very appropriate and otherwise “proper” to use the term “nigger” when talking about race issues in this country.

So, my question then is…Why in Satan’s hell is it so bothersome to people that he used the term in the context in which he used it?   For people who don’t want it ever said, I say this to you…What planet are you living on?   Are you so much in denial about what has happened in this country that you are trying to pretend that the word was never used? Do you think that if it is never used that people will forget that it was ever used?  Think again.

I don’t get this notion that the word is like some “plague”… it is not.  It is simply a “word.” It only has the power that you give it.   It only can hurt you if you let it.   The operative term here is “you.”   Hell,..the youngest I can remember being called the word in a derogatory way was back when I was in elementary school.  We were standing in front of the school doors, waiting to board the school buses to go home. While some of us black students were waiting in one of the lines, a white boy called us “niggers.”   We told the white teacher who was standing there and she didn’t chastise him at all.  She looked at us and told us to be quiet. Well…the story has a good ending in that, after that day, the white boy did not call the group of us “niggers” anymore.   Why?  Because when I got on the bus, I told my brother what the boy had called us.  Well, as they say, that was all she wrote.   My brother literally and figuratively “beat the hell” out of that white boy.  Now, don’t misunderstand,  I don’t condone that kind of violence…now.  God says the truth is the light so I have to tell it all.   To us… then, that boy needed an attitude adjustment and we thought, “yeah, you got what your hand called for.”

You see…I too… have experienced the ugly use of the word.  And, I survived…with the ability to hear it used by President Obama and not freak out about it.  What are we some kind of wimps that we can’t even tolerate an intellectual discussion on race that includes the use of the word.  He did not call somebody a “nigger” to make them feel that their worth was less than someone else’s.  If you are still reading this at this point of the post,…you see…you survived my intentional use of the word in this post.  And…you didn’t melt and fade away like the “wicked witch” from the Wizard of Oz.   If I can stand having it used against me as a “black woman” in a derogatory way, then, you (whether you are black, white, pink or green) should be able to stand me using it to discuss racism in this country, then and now.

So… please let’s stop with all of this over the top, hyper-sensitivity regarding the word.   Trying to hide it away in a lock box, where you throw away the key is not going to stop the word from beating in the heart of the evil & the racist. Those whose actions will still… kill and destroy.   What we really need to be talking about on the news are ways, through God, to change the hearts of man…from hate to love.

Iris R. Whiting ©