Are They Just Words?

I am probably the last person on earth to finally weigh in on the controversies surrounding Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade, the Michael Richards comedy club "N word" rant, Isaiah Washington's use of a gay slur and Joe Biden's recent statements intended to (but not interpreted as) complimenting fellow Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. However, I am interested in the topic and a couple of stories that I heard/read last week got my attention such that I wanted to share them.

On NPR's "Talk of the Nation" last week the story "Are All Slurs Created Equal?" featured guests John McWhorter, author of Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America; Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger, a Seattle weekly paper who writes a syndicated advice column, "Savage Love," who it should be noted is a homosexual; and Mark Anthony Neal; professor of black popular culture at Duke University.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7117625

The gist of the discussion was now we have historically attached a social stigma to certain terms such as the "N word" in relation to blacks and the "F word" in relation to homosexuals. Specifically, that we condemn those such as Richards and Washington who are not either black (Richards) or gay (Washington) who use these terms towards somebody who is. As McWhorter and Savage discussed on the show, it is very much acceptable for one black person to use the "N word" with another as well as for one gay person to use the "F word" towards another. In fact, these are terms of affection or friendship in those contexts.

One caller suggested that we may give these words more significance by giving events such as the Michael Richards "N word" rant and Isaiah Washington's comments about fellow "Grey's Anatomy" co-star T.R. Knight, who was forced to out himself as a homosexual after Washington's comments, so much attention in the media. He asked just how powerful these words, and after all they are just words, would be if the media and prominent members of the black, gay, or Jewish community just ignored these episodes entirely. Of course, this will never happen but it is food for thought.

In an article that appeared on Slate.com last week titled "The Irrelevance of Soft Bigotry: Why Joe Biden's Foul-Up Doesn't Matter," Richard Thompson Ford looked at Biden's comments and a discrimination case involving a female employee of Price Waterhouse through the prism of existing civil rights law. In case you didn't hear his words, Biden refered to Obama as "The first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

http://www.slate.com/id/2158959/

Ford's general point in regards to Biden is that regardless of the words that we speak, our attitudes are harder to discern, much less control. Maybe, as he puts it, Joe Biden is in fact a bigot who thinks most blacks are dirty and inarticulate. However, as Ford writes, maybe Biden is just inarticulate himself. As evidence he cites President Lyndon Johnson who was, by all accounts, something of a racist which was not unusual for white Southerners of his age. However, as Ford writes Johnson also "worked tirelessly and at real political cost to ensure the passage of modern civil rights legislation," adding that "his professional and personal dealings seem free of the stain of bigotry."

Look, I am not saying that Joe Biden did not put his foot in his mouth and virtually derailed his 2008 Presidential bid before it even got started. However, for him to be completely written off by members of the black community based on these comments is not entirely fair either. Let's evaluate the man for his body of work, for his actions and decisions as a politician such that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water. And you never know, Obama and Biden just might be running mates at some point. How about that for some irony?