slurs
There's an ominous thundercloud hovering around the use of problematic language, and I'm really trying to steer clear of it. Still, I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes I do get the itch to start saying no-no words; not to anyone in particular of course, just around the house while I'm cleaning up or doing chores. I've spent so many hours in corporate trainings about racial sensitivity and diversity mandates, that I wonder what would actually happen if I dared to indulge myself. Would a squad of delta force rangers break down my door and bring me to a dilapidated basement, where Al Sharpton is waiting to whip the shit out of my ballsack? Would cyborg Adolf Hitler jump out of a time machine and try to recruit me into a futuristic Ubermensch cult that's planning to overthrow the government? Or maybe nothing would happen except my bloodstream flooding with dopamine, because my brain knows I'm being a naughty, naughty boy.
But there actually is a reason for the stigma buried underneath all the Stalinist rhetoric. You might be surprised to hear this, but people have always been in conflict with one another. Sometimes that conflict boils over and bad shit happens. The fervor for perpetrating this bad shit is fomented by exaggerating stereotypes to the point of subhuman barbarity, and in the resulting rhetoric you'll find a word that's become a compression of this distorted caricature. It often sounds sharp and snappy for effect -- one or two short syllables with hard consonants on both ends. Using a pejorative is different than a generic insulting term like 'dickhead'; there's a specific history and context that's invoked. Not only do I hate this person, but their entire family and ethnic group, and I believe the atrocities perpetrated against them in the past were justified. Shit, that's pretty horrific.
Where things get tricky though, is the context in which a slur is used. Suspected white supremacist Mark Twain used the n-word throughout Huckleberry Finn, and professional actor-man Leonardo DiCaprio says it at least 20 times in Django Unchained. If I drop the n-bomb right now, am I, a) a well-meaning history teacher doing a unit on pre-Civil War America, b) an edgy teenager riffing at the lunch table, or c) a white nationalist who wants to deport all black people to South Sudan? You might want to be careful, because the HR department doesn't care if you have a good reason. If you so much as think about the word, they're coming for your ballsack. Now if I were in charge, the guy using it in a valid context would get a pass, the edgelord a few lashes, and the actual racist would get sent to South Sudan in a shipping crate.
How about the context of 're-appropriation'? If me and my homies start calling a spoon a fork and vice versa, and everyone else does too, eventually a spoon becomes a fork, and a fork becomes a spoon. Before you know it, everyone's using a fork to eat cereal in the morning, and also to shoot up in the parking lot afterwards. Likewise, if everyone starts using a slur as a term of endearment, like 'friend' or 'homeboy', all the injustices of the past are washed away. All of a sudden, everyone's hanging out at the church barbecue singing "M.A.A.D City" together. Whoa, hold up buddy -- you can't be using that word unless you've got ancestors who worked on the cotton plantations. Well how about black people straight from Africa or Latinos? They feel left out. Apparently it's fine because... well... I mean, people with darker skin have always been the victims of bad stuff, and people with lighter skin have always been the ones responsible for it.
Look, I'm not encouraging people to run around dropping slurs willy nilly. Our speaking habits shape our character -- saying gamer words while playing Counter Strike probably won't lead to hooded nighttime marches carrying a tiki torch, but it can lead to crass and demeaning behavior. All I'm saying is that everyone's living in fear at the thought of an untimely screenshot from a group chat ending up on the front page of CNN, and if you don't have access to a high-voltage tanning bed, you'd better go into hiding in a monastery on Mount Athos. You might think this encourages conformity and good-boy behavior, but it really just encourages more curiosity my nigga! Ow fuck, my ballsack!