The 'N' word – who's right is it? by Pascoe Sawyer

Spike Lee's recent outburst against Quentin Tarantino, for using the 'n' word has opened up a long overdue debate about the increasingly liberal use of the word. Lee claims Tarantino is "infatuated" with it. That's why it is used 28 times in his highly successful Pulp Fiction and 38 times in his new movie Jackie Brown.

Lee points out that if he had used a word like "kike", 38 times in one of his films the sheer weight of the public outcry against him would have ended his career as a filmmaker. This is probably true, but Lee's attempt at championing the black cause looks less well considered when we remember that the word "nigger" features prominently in practically every film he has been involved in making.

Nigger is also used in critically acclaimed (in the black community anyway), by black directed films like Boyz In The Hood (John Singleton) and Menace To Society, (Albert and Allen Hughes) , apparently with Spike's approval. That's because Lee's problem with Tarantino has less to do with the use of the word "nigger" in his films and more to do with the fact that it's a white director using it.

Tarantino, who claims to have been raised on black culture, is unrepentant. Staunchly defending his position in a recent interview, he said: "I'm a white guy who is not afraid of that word. I just don't feel the whole white guilt and pussy footing around the whole racial issue."

Samuel L. Jackson , an actor whose elevation to 'big star' status owes much to his appearances in Tarantino movies, has also been quick to defend the director's right to realistically portray black lifestyles, and states he has no problem being called a "nigger" or calling other black people "nigger"
on screen, as long as it's in context.

Diran Adebayo, author of the Sega prize winning novel , Some Kind Of Black, agrees with Jackson. Commenting on Jackie Brown, he said: "I don't think the film will in any way affect black people's state of mind. It's Tarantino's homage to one of the cultures he has experienced as he grew up and the film comes from his perspective and there's nothing wrong with that. The only issue for debate is, is it a good film or not? And I think it is".

He could very well be right, but it is also true that black British youngsters are increasing using the word "nigger" in public. Anyone who has ever listened to the phone in dedications on Radio One's weekend rap shows, hosted by white DJ, Tim Westwood, can testify that it's not just black youngsters who seem to be getting a kick out of using the word to refer to friends and loved ones.

It's one of the many ironies of this situation that black American's actually initiated the use of "nigger" as a popular slang word. My first experience of hearing it was through the comedian Richard Pryor. I remember seeing videos of his stand up routines in the early eighties and I must admit, at the time I thought he was side-splittingly brilliant. Pryor wasn't the first black American icon from that era to publicly call himself a "nigger" with pride. The word also features strongly in the blaxploitation films of the seventies.

It all started going wrong in 1989 when a young LA based gangsta rap group stepped on the scene, with a name that must have brought a sparkle to the eyes of the PR executive given the task to marketing them. No doubt about it, Niggaz Wit' Attitude (NWA) were an extremely talented and innovative group, but the lyrical content of their best selling records helped to make a "nigga" a hip thing to be, and young black men were particularly attracted to the tag.

Other rappers, however, have attempted to accentuate the positive meaning of the word. The infamous Tu Pac Shakur, in a track from his first album 2Pocalpyse Now, defines "nigger" as standing for 'Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished'. But does changing the spelling and even the meaning of such a loaded word necessarily change the mental images which subconsciously come to mind when it is used?

While black artists continue to promote the use of the word in popular culture, studies in America show that the word "nigger" is still the most commonly used insult in racially motivated attacks on black people, which takes us to the heart of the issue. For most people black and white, "nigger" still means what it has always meant; the lowest of the low.

This point is beautifully illustrated in a scene from the film True Romance. A group of Sicilian gangsters are torturing and about to kill, an old man, Clifford Worley (Denis Hopper). Once the character realises his fate he decides to retaliate:

WORLEY

 

"Did you know Sicilians were spawned by niggers ? It's a fact. Sicilians have black blood pumping through their hearts. If you don't believe me look it up… hundreds of years ago the Moors conquered Sicily… the Moors are niggers. Back then the Sicilians were like wops from northern Italy, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Then the Moors moved in there... they did so much fucking with Sicilian women that they changed the whole blood line forever. That's how blonde hair and blue eyes became black hair and dark skin. And it's always amazing to me that hundreds of years later you Sicilians still carry that nigger gene".

Today, black street culture and its vocabulary are at the heart of the mainstream, so if black people insist on using the word in public, then there is no justifiable or logical reason why people from other races should not be able to do the same. Black Americans have opened a Pandora's box that only they can close.

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