The media is finding good sound bite material in the battles about racism between celebrities. There was Bill Maher and Ben Affleck on Islam. Now it is Piers Morgan and Ta-Nehisi Coates on the use of the N word. I have long been a Coates fan of his excellent and thoughtful writing. I find him up to his usual standards here. Morgan seems to me to be engaged in yet another attempt to put the blame for racism on the victims of it.
Piers Morgan dubbed 'ignorant' by Ta-Nehisi Coates in N-word dispute Online debate ensued after former CNN host penned MailOnline column placing the onus of ending use of the N-word on African-Americans
A strong opinion about the N-word voiced by former CNN host Piers Morgan gave way to an online grapple Monday night between Morgan and Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor at the Atlantic and a nonpareil voice on race and racism in the United States.
Morgan’s piece, on the MailOnline, where he is editor-at-large, placed the onus of ending use of the N-word on African Americans. The piece drew a storm of negative feedback. Eventually it drew the attention of Coates.
Coates jumped in after Morgan stoked the embers of umbrage by tweeting: “Is it what I wrote that offended, #BlackTwitter – or the skin colour of the man who wrote it? #NWord”.
Coates replied: “You are further evidencing your deep ignorance. Black people have been debating this among themselves long before you.”
A dramatic two-way non-conversation ensued. “Not your skin color that offends,” Coates continued. “It is your desire to cover your deep ignorance of black people, with a facade of expertise. In brief – you’re not qualified.”
Morgan has a history of using flamboyant name calling in an effort to attract media attention. The campaign hasn't been very successful. His gigs keep getting canceled for lack of audience response.
There is a link to a long series of tweets which I will admit to having trouble following. Here is an article that Coates wrote in The Atlantic earlier this year about the on going debate on the N word.
Politics and the African-American Human Language For the NFL to ban the word "nigger" would be racist.
The effort to ban the word "nigger" from the NFL is not just, as Richard Sherman smartly points out, borderline racist but actually racist. Any effort to raise a standard for African-American humans that does not exist for non-African-American humans is racist.
As I've explained before, the meaning of human language changes with context. That is why you may call your wife honey, but I probably should not. That is why Toby Keith referring to himself as "White Trash With Money" will never be the same as me accusing Toby of being "white trash with money." That is why Dan Savage proposing a column entitled "Hey Faggot!" will never be the same as me seeing Dan Savage on the street and yelling "Hey Faggot!" This is how humans use language, and it is wholly consistent with how black humans use language. The effort to punish this use, like all respectability politics, is an effort to punish black humanity, is racism.
It does not matter that black people of a certain persuasion are making this charge. Black people of a certain persuasion also supported the kind of laws that now find one third of all black men under state supervision. This is not an appeal to a crowd, it is an appeal to the basic rules of language, without which we would all be soon reduced to babble. When people claim that the word "nigger" must necessarily mean the same thing, at all times, spoken by all people, one wonders whether they understand how the very words coming out of their mouth actually work.
It is well worth reading the whole thing. White men like Morgan are just constitutionally incapable of getting over the notion that they are always in control of every situation and every topic of discussion. They think that they were endowed by nature with the right to tell everybody else what to do and that anybody who would presume to talk back to them is just being upity.