Writes Lauretta Charlton, in "Richard Pryor’s Daughter Grapples With a Flawed Father and a Hateful Word/Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor’s new book, 'Something We Said,' is at once a memoir and a history of a racial slur" (NYT).
It sounds as though the book expands on Pryor's TED Talk from 2019. Pryor, the daughter, became a history teacher, and she had an experience with a student quoting a line from "Blazing Saddles" — which her father co-wrote — and saying the "n-word" as part of the quote. She asked "Why not connect [Richard Pryor's] legacy with her own by becoming a foremost scholar of the n-word?"
Here's the TED Talk:
Side note: I'm reading about Richard Pryor's contributions to the "Blazing Saddles" script and see that he was especially pleased with this line:
Posts
58 comments:
Future generations will find our fetishization of the n-word both ridiculous and highly instructive.
I grew up in the late 60s and 70s in Chicagoland.
Nigger was a common slur in working class environs where people of different ethnicities negotiated turf. Times were different. Plenty of ethnic slurs when diverse people live alongside one another...
Yo7 and meade live in wealthy white Madison. 6ou dont see the real world hiding out at home keeping vampire hours.
Its a nasty word that shouldnt be used (on sny side)
The n-word that comes to mind after listening to the front portion of the TED Talk was “navel-gazing.”
Brothel = violence and rape?
Many "empowered sex-positive sex workers" want to have a word. Many contemporary Democrats who advocate for pre-puberty exposure to sexualized content and reject the notion of "groomer" want a word.
The 1970s left has nothing in common with today's left. Only those who financially benefit hang together. When the old-timers with this attitude die off there will be no unity and a different Party.
Scrolling through her Ted Talk, she doesn't spend much (any?) time on the most glaring conflict over the n-word: Black people can say it routinely, white people will be routinely destroyed for saying it.
I served on a school board in which 7 white students were suspended because one scratched the word on a notepad as a message to her white boyfriend who broke up with her, and posted it on their private Facebook page. (All involved were white.) Someone leaked it. The superintendent wanted them *expelled*.
This administrator had recently become politicized with the election of Trump, and "explained" to the board the power of the n-word. She admitted that, yes, black students can yell the word in her presence and not worry about consequence, while white students face grave punishment for using the same word in any setting or context.
I explained how that double standard is not sustainable. I still believe that.
Anyone who defends the banning of the n-word must defend its ban universally. Exceptions based on the race of the speaker derive from moral cowardice of the slimiest order.
Richard Pryor made a fortune by peppering his stand-up routine with the forbidden n-word, not to mention f-words and c-words aplenty. His black audience admired his immunity to the social controls white liberals love to impose on whites but fear to enforce against blacks. Whites enjoyed hearing Pryor use the n-word on their behalf.
If you make a rule, enforce it without fear or favor. Otherwise you're just another POS poseur.
As far as her standup act, it's funny but not "ha ha" funny.
…it’s an interesting movie but Blazing Saddles ends up in far too many academic essays and discussions…
"N-word" is an infantile term - befitting those who gladly use it or insist on its use.
One rule for us...for you, another...
Do unto yourselves as you'd see fit for your brother...
Is this not within your realm of understanding?
A fifty second capacity of mind too demanding?
-Erasure
It's like making special rules on test dates because you dont think your Jewish students are up with their brains turned on at 700am on Sunday morning.... or wishing Jewish students a special happy holiday for their minority religion while not doing the same for Christian students with the holiday greetings.
At some level, you have to stop putting your thumbs on the scales ladies. You're not helping.
I’ll spill the dirty secret that those ‘margin’ loans are almost always unsecured lines of credit. Crazy that, huh?
As I recall Pryor's routine, he ended it with a quiet but powerful call to to implement narciso's opinion.
It's a shame that we still fetishize certain words, treat them as magical incantations where the power resides in the sound made by the particular collection of letters, while we care a great deal less about the ideas behind them. As Lenny Bruce pointed out decades ago--the taboo is what gives these words their power. If you want to take away their power, speak them freely and often.
People who want to ban certain words put me to mind of the witches in MacBeth, crouched over their burning cauldron in a dank cave. They are trapped in the superstitions of the dark ages.
It shouldnt be used (but people dont have the discretion not to use it for reasons)
I enjoyed Alex Karras punching out the horse.
Would you rather be Black and be able to say the n word with abandon or White and to forever hold your tongue?
Why say it at all: is shows a paucity of thought
The prohibition of the use of a word is an enshrinement of that very word. It is in effect a Holy, sanctified (set apart) word. One which can only be uttered by true adherents of the religion of Racial Justice. It is a key stone in the temple of victimhood. When/if you observe/hear the word spoken your first question will be "is the color of the persons skin of a sufficiently dark shade so as to justify its use."
Obama would most certainly never use this word, not because of social refinement, but rather because of his mother's whiteness. He's dark enough to be the first black president, but not dark enough to set foot into the Holy of Holies of victimhood.
I don't use it, and I completely understand how awful it is for black Americans to hear it used against them. However... (all of you know what's coming next), it is said far more frequently by other blacks directed at other blacks, other whites, other Asians, other...you name it. It is the black community who keeps the word in common use, and throws it around as both weapon and a sign of camaraderie, depending on the situation. Or just to fill in lyric gaps in a Hip-Hop number.
It is so rarely used among white people these days that I suspect it would mostly disappear entirely if not for the black community propping it up for decades now.
As for not being able to say the word aloud when reading historical documents, or reading literature, or even an opinion piece, I find that a problem. The word exists. It has meaning. If you are reading a document, or reading a book, or watching "Blazing Saddles" the meaning is important. Even, and maybe especially, its use in comedy needs to be heard. Its use in historical documents needs to be read, heard, understood.
How else do you learn from what took place?
There is a difference between using the word in a funny/odd context, or using it as you read from an historical document, and using the word as a weapon of hate, to hurt someone deeply. Certainly grown adults can handle the former.
The "N-word" has entered a cultural uncanny valley. In a prior era it was used frequently (but still rude vs. "Negro" or "Colored", and then ironically by whites and blacks during the 1970s-1980s fade out. Per the cultural sensitivity DEI era that followed, it became a quasi-religious taboo word. This is logically identical to Christian "taking the Lord's name in vain" with disrespectful swear words -- it fills that space now.
It could leave its de-facto religious status and return to mainstream use or once again as an accepted but hostile public term, but that's more likely a generation or two in the future. It entered the in-group public norm among blacks long ago.
I disapprove that it’s acceptable for some but not all. Rules for thee is no basis for a civilization…
Also, the g-word. And it's long past time to sequester the f-word. Can't we all just have a gay old time? #HateLovesAbortion
Mongo leaves me wondering if/when AI will come to a similar epiphany.
Damn n-erds and n-itwitters.
A legacy of D-iversity (i.e. color and class judgments) laces Democratic p-rogress.
My black friends, people that I trust, tell me that there is more white-on-black racism that goes on, day in, day out, than I am aware of. The kind of hostility seen in more open displays in, say, Mississippi Burning, just better controlled. I don't doubt it.
Now, these friends are upstanding people, professionals, not the type affecting a 'ghetto' front. But the same kind of white people are walking around now, as then - and they are influenced by perceived social norms, just as they were then. Old beliefs die hard.
I've never been able to understand, to sympathize, with racial hatred. That doesn't mean I don't notice racial differences in appearances or attitudes.
Trying to stifle this by banning a word won't work. It hasn't worked, and encouraging a double standard makes it worse, by sending the wrong message to people that think it's OK when they're doing it - black or white - but not OK when the target of their animosity does it, too.
For most of my life, I thought Mongo was played by Dick Butkis.
The idea that one class or race of people are allowed to use a certain word and the others are not? Well, that's fucking stupid as all git out. But white leftists (in general) begat that situation. And just because the word is pronounced differently by Negroes doesn't make it exempt.
Before there was Richard Pryor there was Dick Gregory. The n-word is the title of his 1964 autobiography, which I recall as an eye-opening read back in my college days.
I misstated. Before there could be a Richard Pryor, a Kevin Hart, a Dave Chappelle, or a Chris Rock, there had to be a Dick Gregory.
Before there could be a Dick Gregory, there had to be a Red Foxx and a Moms Mabley . . .
I baled from the TED talk at the four minute mark--too much hominahomina backstory.
There used to be a strong prohibition against saying Yehovah aloud. That's because everyone believed that Yehovah and his power existed. The n-word exists with such powerful singularity because people believe the n-word still exists. It will take another couple of hundred years before we work these things out, but they'll eventually be resolved.
She appears to be a poised and successful woman. I would bet anything that that's mostly due to her mother. Her father was a drug addict. If he didn't on occasion behave horrendously to her he's the only addict in history who didn't.
Big Mike- your comments regarding Dick Gregory hit a note for me. I saw Dick Gregory give a talk to a small audience of students at Michigan State University sometime in the early 70s. I'd say probably '72 or '73. Seeing your note reminded me of what stood out in that talk. First of all, I was probably in my most left stage at that point. I was not far left by any means, but as leftist as I would ever get. I went all Libertarian to Conservative from that point on.
But Gregory's talk was good. He was a very sharp man. And yes, a man of the left, but he was very funny and at the same time, very direct with his points. And one of his points that I remember clearly is that he used the 'N' word regularly and hard, and pointed at us- the majority white students in the crowd. We were all the young left-leaning crowd. He told us that we were the new . And the crowd- the students- ate it up. They loved it. Students had been involved in riots for years now, getting beaten and shot from Kent State to Madison to Berkeley to Ann Arbor. And even in little East Lansing. It kinda gave them permission to continue to act as if they're down with the fight. It gave them permission to feel like they were a help. It gave them permission to keep acting up.
I remember thinking that it sounded like manipulation to me. It was one of many times in my 'leftist' days I left something feeling like "Well...maybe I'm not really one of these people." I didn't feel any pride in this black man calling me a (n-word). Too many of them wore it like a badge of honor.
Thanks for reminding me of this memory. I had great respect for Dick Gregory. But that approach, that hook, didn't hook me.
The Priors represent the Ori in their progress to abort competing Ascended beings, to achieve equity and inclusion of the galaxy's inhabitants.
I've seen a joke advertisement floating around social media that goes something like "An edited version of Blazing Saddles that removes all potentially offensive jokes will air tonight between 9 and 9:07 p.m."
"Her father was raised in a brothel in Peoria, Ill., where he witnessed the constant terror of violence and rape."
I would not think there would be much rape going on in a brothel.
Jesus. She is almost as obsessed with this BS as you are. I guess the poor thing is just doing what she can with the lousy cards she was dealt.
You know, the joggers call us "crackers" all the time. It is intended as a slur, and I suppose I could give a TED talk on how I "experienced" hearing it. Or I could make a fucking sandwich. I think I'll make a sandwich.
"I explained how that double standard is not sustainable."
Oh, it's sustainable. As long as white people continue to send their children to public schools, they can expect to continue receiving racial abuse. But it does induce a certain ... fatigue.
"My black friends, people that I trust, tell me that there is more white-on-black racism that goes on, day in, day out, than I am aware of."
Oh, now that's funny. Did they also tell you that blacks kill whites at 40 times the rate whites kill blacks? Did they mention the figures for rape? It's not "racism". It's fatigue.
Meathead: "Archie, I can't believe you voted for Nixon ... ... ... instead of for Dick Gregory."
Fatigue.
@Narr, I had never heard of Foxx before “Sanford and Son” and my impression was that — as far as we honkies were concerned it was Dick Gregory who brought our attention to her, not the other way around.
As far as I can tell what made Gregory unique was speaking to white audiences. He made us laugh and feel a bit ashamed at the same time — and resolve to be better human beings.
I could be wrong. I’m an old man and the Civil Rights movement and the early 1960s were a long time ago. I was young, I was strong, I was slender, I had hair, and I had a conscience. All that’s left is the conscience.
If a black person (or half-black, or one-drop rule) hears the “N-word”, or reads it, and doesn’t know if the author or speaker is at least partially black (or Eminem) how can they know whether to be traumatized?
Talk to your doctor about HRT, Mike.
Most old white men end up with moobs and faces resembling old lesbians, I've noticed of late...
With a back story like his, Pryor would be an ivy League admit today...
How do you think they get the girls to stay, Jupiter?
You think beautiful young things really want to take a dirty old man's cock in their mouth or front hole?
Doubtful though some gals might have initially been tricked into it.
Big Mike, my comment wasn't meant to denigrate Dick Gregory--who was funny as hell and a cultural phenom in his own right--but just to float the idea that he didn't come out of a vacuum.
You're correct that he brought what previously had been confined to the chitlin circuit of black comics and musicians to a broader audience.
And I'm with you on the student-as-n-word blather, and the slide from college conformist Leftyism to whatever I am now.
What's that line? "I thought I agreed with you, but then you started talking."
“For most of my life, I thought Mongo was played by Dick Butkis.”
Sweet Jaysus, Scott M! That is Mongo-level idiocy.
WHY is “that” word poisonous? Do people really think “N word” and “nigger” mean different things. What’s with the obsession of pretending to mean something different when it’s quite clear what we mean. Perhaps it’s just a way of expressing contempt for poorly- educated (mostly poor southerners) people who pronounced “negro” differently. Some may have done so for all the wrong reasons but any old-time nice southern lady Always said “nigra”. Hell, it may have been an early eubonics thing.
Apologies to all offended.
You gotta admit though - it’s not easy keeping up with what people of sub- Saharan African descent approve of being called. “Colored” is out. “People of color is in”. “Black” - is that in or out? I wish they would make up their minds. I wish “they” would just be willing to be “us”. There’s a lot of money and privilege attached to being a victim, though.
Just drop “African American, please. (OK on Juneteenth or other day of choice). Otherwise, be a “American” or go the fuck back where you came from.
Clarification - I’m not sayin’ “that” word is OK. Only that it’s substitute is no different. Would our hostess be any less offended if I referred to her using “C-word” rather than….?
"What’s with the obsession of pretending to mean something different when it’s quite clear what we mean."
I don't think anybody's pretending. It's about power and control- who can use words and who can keep you from using them.
I came up at the tail end of Teh Real Jim Crow, and if not for the notorious epithet some of my family and friends would have had little to say.
But even then, only among themselves--it was beginning to be uncool in public.
Narr: “ my comment wasn't meant to denigrate Dick Gregory-”
ISWYDT. CC, JSM
I remember my dad kicking my ass in our house for saying it when I was about nine or ten. About the same time period he kicked my ass again when I called my mom (The woman was a saint I tell’s ya) stupid. This was Georgia 1970, and you can bet your ass I learned those words from my dad so go figure.
TEDX talks are not TED talks — the standard is much lower.
TED, TEDx--
Obviously, I don't know the difference.
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 4 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith. Also: DON'T USE ITALICS.