A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on March 23rd, 2008 in Progressive Faith

Last week, I said I’d get back to this topic. It appears as if it is so straight-forward that it simply can’t be looked at directly. Or, alternately, there are a lot of stupid people saying stupid, emotion-laden things that they think passes for commentary on race. I encourage it - I’d rather know where people actually stand, and if they have to get blind-mad to do it, then bring it on. Angry people may be fools, but they are not generally liars.

I refuse to tiptoe around like some kind of moron saying “the n-word”. Give it a rest. If we can’t somehow understand that there is an ocean of difference between calling someone a nigger and using the word itself in a sentence to talk about racial attitudes; then we might as well just shut up and pick our collective noses. It isn’t the word that is the problem - it is the attitudes behind it. I knew a lot of guys in the Navy who would never say the word “nigger”. They’d just curl up their upper lip and say “bruthas”. It meant the same.

On the other hand, my now-deceased brother used to say that he lived “in deep-dark nigger town”. The old man he worked with was “just a good old nigger.” And, yes, he talked that way in front of his black neighbors and friends. He was nothing if not direct - and a little crude. There was a total lack of judgment - if that is possible - in his use of “nigger”.

It isn’t the word. It’s the intent.

The last - and as far as I can remember - the only black man I ever called a nigger to his face was my buddy, Harcum. I met him while I was in the Navy and he called me “my honky boy” and I called him “my big-ass nigger”. We often found ourselves laughing about the reactions of other people when we’d yell at each other across the hangar-bay. I could tell you what Harcum would tell people about what they could do with their reactions, but it’s pretty filthy - and I’m almost sure it’s impossible, anyway.

I’m not a small person - I’m 6′3″ if I stand up straight and over 250lbs. Harcum made me look tiny. He was raised by his grandmother in Baltimore back when saying “I’m from Baltimore” was a good deterent against people even speaking to you. He was told by a judge to join the Navy or go to jail. He initially chose the Navy, but later changed his mind. Anyway, he’s the only person - the only black person - I have ever called a nigger to his face. And it was, in the way of men who insult each other because they can’t find words to speak of love towards their friends, the highest compliment I could give him.

I don’t know why I never had a hang-up on the color of people’s skin. I can well remember playing with my cousins when we were small and using the word as a generic insult for someone who wasn’t playing fairly or, sometimes, was just winning too often. But I had lots of friends that were black - so many that when I would visit my mother’s parents, they’d always ask me how “your little nigger friends are doing”. My father’s parents, as far as I remember, used the word “colored”. But there was a fishing hole on the Pecos that they all referred to as “the Nigger Hole”. Make of it what you will.

When my friend Mark talks to my classes about anti-gay bias, he always starts out by saying that he is racist - and anyone who grew up in Arkansas in the early 1950s is racist, too. He has learned to look past the gut-level reactions that he learned as a child, but there is always that initial bias. I understand this perfectly, and it makes sense on many levels. Behavior psychologists call it “the law of primacy” - that which is learned first is learned best, and usually remains the default reaction despite years of behavioral shaping against it.

So when this guy starts out talking about Uncle Remus, I understand that, too. And I sympathize. I can remember when Denny’s restaurant was called “Sambos”. I also remember being absolutely dumbfounded at my wife’s horror to find I had been walking through Newark singing “Zippity-do-dah!”. She really got upset when I said I was “scratchin’ poor old Sambo’s head”. As far as I was aware, these were simply children’s stories that I had grown up with and loved. As I considered it, though, the racist overtones became pretty apparent.

Aside The whole Uncle Remus controversy irritates me. Whether Joel Chandler Harris “stole them from local blacks” or if he made them up entirely doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is that those stories represent truly American folklore - objectionable racial stereotypes and all. If we refuse to acknowledge them because they are partially offensive (but, hey, Brer Rabbit was one smart cookie!); then we will divorce ourselves from our own past - both the good and the bad.

A large part of the problem is that we are so caught up in how we say things that we can no longer focus on what we say at all. Case in point. Apparently, “B(some letter other than “i”)tch” is infinitely less offensive than “bitch”. Don’t ask me how. I really meant the first example to be a crushing insult to the stupidity of being unable to look past how a word is spelled to see how it is used. Sarcasm is lost on the earnest, all too often. How can we make progress if we can’t talk directly?

Of course, we can talk directly without using the traditional words of hate. We do it all the time. I do it all the time. So why have “those words” in our lexicon?

For the same reason that the word “fuck” should be allowed on television. We can come up with a hundred and fifty different ways to talk about sexual activity, from clinical to derisive, we can joke and poke and even show people doing it. But we can’t say the actual word? Which is worse?

When Jesus confronted the power structure of his day, he called them hypocrits and said all of their good works were sepulchres and dry bones. Which matters more, he asked, that a person show God’s love or that a person use “the right language” while doing so? If you are homeless and hungry, which person shows you more love - the one who says “God bless you, I have no money for you today,” or the one who says, “Here’s a goddamn dollar - go buy a breathmint!”?

There’s a lot more to say about race - and a lot more to say about the word “nigger” (and “bitch” and “spic” and - while we’re at it - “Indian” instead of “Native American” [don't get me started on why the NFL allows a team to be called "Redskins" but not "Darkies"]). Peoply have written dissertations on the topics. I can climb up to that level, but most people don’t live and breathe there.

So let’s stay down where we live. And let’s not knee-jerk our heaviest condemnation for someone who isn’t PC (actually, let’s save our heaviest condemnation for someone who is PC). If we’re going to talk about race at all, let’s bring it all out. Let’s bring out the good and the bad and all the ugly, hideous stuff that we’ve done to each other up to this point. And when someone is trying to make a point, let’s try to see the point. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Stereotypes live on because they work - there is enough of truth is the falsest one for a reasoning person to say - “Yep. That’s how it is.”

Like I said, angry people may be fools - they may say things in foolish ways they’d otherwise keep to themselves - but they seldom lie. But, as Abraham Lincoln said about hanging a deserter - I wish everyone would get a little bit of foolishness and just be honest.

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