I'm reading: ...By Any Other NameTweet this!  Share on Facebook

...By Any Other Name

AUGUST 16, 2007        TAGS: CIVIL RIGHTS RACE, HUMOR, INTELLECTUALS         COMMENTS (8)

by David Bradley



 

Sometimes I’m a little … out of the loop. I didn’t hear the verdict until the ’hood was burning. I didn’t hear we’d invaded Afghanistan until we’d invaded Iraq. And I didn’t know Nigger was even sick.

There’d been no alteration in the vital signs. Median black family income was still 61 percent of white. Black unemployment was still twice as high as white. Unarmed black men were still being shot by cops. Thousands of black refugees still no longer lived in New Orleans.

But there had been indications. The last time I got fired, the Human Relations Commission said “race was not a factor,” and the last time I didn’t get hired the Equal Opportunity Employer said it was my “style” that “didn’t quite fit.” But the guy they hired was white, so I assumed it was just another euphemism, like “last hired, first fired.” When the officer who stopped me for Jogging While Black called me “Sir,” I never dreamed it was because Nigger had Blue Flu.

I did hear that Paris Hilton was freedom riding in Dixie with Nicole Richie, who, according to one tabloid, “self-identifies as African-American.” I did hear that Nicole Richie likes her men pale and homeless-looking — in other words, white trash. But I didn’t hook it all up with Nigger until I heard about the funeral.

I know the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has money trouble. They can’t even afford to let Colored retire. But this so-called funeral was not only cheap, but wrong.

A funeral is a solemn rite; you do not cheer, even if the departed was your landlord. And a pine coffin? A horse-drawn wagon? Not even a used El Dorado? In Detroit?

My daddy was a preacher. I’m not saying he would lie, but he’d eulogize the devil out of drunks, loose women, even politicians so their own mothers wanted to recognize them, because Last Words should be not only true, but kind. The preacher at Nigger’s funeral told lies worse than truth. Nigger, he said, was “the greatest child racism ever birthed.” Like he never heard of lynching.

Mostly the Colored People just dissed the deceased, denying Nigger’s entitles, saying Nigger needed killing. The Mayor, said “N-word” would be buried with “all the nonsense that went with it.” Like it was Nigger that invented “all deliberate speed”, “separate-but-equal” and the “One-Drop” Rule.

I don’t know why the Governor attended; she’s native Canadian, of Scandihoovian extraction, blonde as Paris Hilton — I doubt she’s got a drop of black blood, let alone personal experience. But she was kickin’ trash right along with the Colored People. At least she didn’t claim Nigger interfered with her, you know? Or maybe she did. Maybe that’s why the preacher didn’t mention lynching, and nobody ever said how Nigger died.

I know some folks weren’t fond of Nigger, but this was no decent burial. So let me say Last Words, and try to be true and kind.

Yes, Nigger did the bigots’ business. As did the Constitution. Racism is the nation’s baggage; Nigger just toted the load. And the trunks were packed by Thomas Jefferson. If you want definition, not just a derivation, see Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV.
Yes, Nigger worked for the Man. But also against him. The Man believed Jefferson’s definition; Nigger never set him straight. As a result the Man was often embarassed. Nigger was no revolutionary, but Nigger was subversive.

And when it was just us … chickens, Nigger was a whole other thing. Yes, Nigger would insult you, and your Mama, too; Nigger playin’ dozens was hilarious. Nobody could have a better time with less money. And Nigger could make wine from anything.

Nigger knew the trouble we’d seen better than Jesus. Yes, Nigger was part of it. Also the inspiration for “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Without Nigger there would have been no spirituals, no blues.

You find that contradictory? Nigger always was. A man owns 187 slaves. That man writes, “All men are created equal.” Later, that man writes that blacks cannot be free because their hair is kinky, they’re oversexed and don’t use perfume. That man then takes one of his own stinking, nappy-headed ho’s as his mistress and mother of his children. That’s contradictory.

So yes, Nigger was cruel. Absent physical abuse, nothing can be more cruel when you’re black and 6 years old. I do have personal experience; Nigger destroyed my faith in mankind and in Jesus, made me want to kill somebody, or myself, or both. But my Uncle told me, “Don’t worry what they call you, so long as it ain’t late to dinner,” and he taught me to counter-punch. Ever since Nigger and I went toe-to-toe, I haven’t cared what anybody called me. I have cared what somebody might do to me, but who listens if there’s a nightstick up your anus?

Besides, those who’ve done me most harm would never use “the N-word.” It’s too naked a reminder of what they want to bury. They prefer terms like “underclass” or “tangle of pathology.” They will call you on time to dinner, provided you’re “articulate,” but expect you to be silent while their heirs are served first. Later, they’ll ask you to do the dishes.
Despite that day job for the Man, Nigger worked for me. Nigger protected me from self-delusion, harmonized my cognitive dissonance, immunized me to the contradictions of American history. Jefferson’s definition was the thesis. The Colored People wasted time with antithesis. But Nigger is synthesis. That’s why I loved Nigger.

And that’s why the Colored People should not have buried Nigger like a sharecropper. Nigger deserved to lie in state. Congress, the Supreme Court, the Executive branch — also the Vice President — should have had to pass and pay respects. For it is they who must declare Nigger persona non grata.

The Colored People didn’t even have a viewing. I therefore suspect that reports of Nigger’s death have been greatly exaggerated. They’ve been premature before; they buried Jim Crow in 1944, but still had to put Nigger in a colored cemetery.

And I hear Michigan voters amended their constitution to ban affirmative action. I hear the IRS taxed the Colored People for criticizing the President. I hear three of New York’s Finest were indicted for killing an unarmed black man again. I hear Nicole Richie just got fired.

David Bradley, author of The Chaneysville Incident, teaches creative writing at the University of Oregon.


Illustration by Joe Morse.

PRINT