Live And Let Die

Here are a few things you won’t see written here:

- That what happened in Charleston wasn’t a terrible tragedy.

- That it wasn’t based in ignorance and a hatred of black people.

- That racism in this country is a thing of the past.

- A defense for the use of the Confederate flag in the United States of America.

- The N-word.

It is around those issues that the conversation has gone since the shooting in Charleston.  The Confederate flag has to go down, and President Obama said the N-word on a podcast.

Gun control has been discussed as well, but an impassioned argument on gun control is another thing you will not get here.  I’m not a supporter of guns, but there are no gun laws that could have stopped the tragedy, short of banning all legal guns.  The problem with that is that all we would have then on the streets are illegal guns, and I am not comfortable with all of the guns out there being in the hands of criminals.  Or at least the vast majority of guns, since the police are outnumbered by criminals who likely only have their guns to cause mayhem and harm.

So with gun control being a non-starter, we return to race and hate.  We return to the heart of the matter, where the gun gets its power and its impetus.  And we return to the Confederate flag and the N-word.

Should President Obama have said the N-word?  No.  And I’ll take it a step further: he shouldn’t be allowed to.  And if you’ll permit me, just a little further: no one should.

The N-word was a way to demean and abuse black people.  It’s a holdover from a time when black people weren’t considered human and it’s a word that was held over black people to make sure they knew it.  It’s grotesque that it’s not only still used today, but it’s used by the descendants of the people who were tortured with it.  

These descendants use it today with the defense of re-appropriation, but they don’t have the right to re-appropriate it.  No one alive today who uses that word like it’s nothing was bought and sold as property.  None of these people were whipped to death or had their children ripped from their arms and sold off like cattle.  None of these people slaved under the hot sun with little hope of a better life.  The people alive today who call each other by that word are the people who those people hoped would be able to live a life without being called that word.

Using the N-word is a living reminder of the darkest period of this country.  A period of hatred and division.  A period whose shadow we still do live in, and I don’t believe that shadow can subside as long as we have living reminders.  We shouldn't forget what happened- we can't, but we need to let the hatred and the word become relics of the past and give them a chance to be only memories, and not perpetuate them and allow them to remain current events. That hatred and that word needs to be deprived of the oxygen used to utter it and be allowed to die.

The N-word is also, in many respects, synonymous with the Confederate flag.  A reminder and a symbol of that dark time.  If the Confederate flag can’t be saved or re-appropriated, then neither can the N-word.  And this is not a case for the salvation or re-appropriation of the Confederate flag.

If the Confederate flag needs to be placed in a museum, then so does the N-word.  And the Confederate flag needs to be placed in a museum.