You wouldn’t call Jesus one...would you?

by Mikel Kwaku Osei Holt

For the record, yes, I did say it. But it wasn’t in the context you may have heard.

I admit to suggesting (versus declaring) that Jesus the Christ was a “nigger.” Yeah, I said it, but no, there was no blasphemous intent. I am a Christian, and under no circumstance would I violate the commandment about using “His” name in vain.

I was being sarcastic (which isn’t unusual for me), during my comments at the MATC Black History Month discussion on whether we should ban the “N” word. In fact, I was trying to show the extent of some Black folk’s hypocrisy and given the circumstances, felt the need to take the debate to another level.

As far as I know, several people were shocked, but not insulted. And most importantly, my comments sparked a debate that led to reconsideration and self-reflection. I think it worked, and there are now a few converts to the growing army of Black Americans with high self-esteem and pride in their heritage.

A couple of speakers before me-Homer Blow and the Black Student Union’s Mark Chambers--had suggested that “nigger” was actually an affectionate term of endearment; that they (young Black America) had defused the negative connotation of the adjective, redefined it and circumvented its historical implication. In essence, nigger was another word for Black, as in “my nigger,” or “Nigger pleaassse!”

Before I provided my sensationalistic analogy, I challenged that weak argument, stating to Charlie Dee, a history professor at MATC, that if he left the auditorium and called Homer a “nigger,” he should expect to be punched out. Thus, nigger still means nigger, and the efforts to defuse it have been ineffectual.

The forum was a highly charged affair, with an equal number of audience participants taking sides on the meaning of the word. None of the panel members--Milton Dockery, Robert Harvey, Dorothy Walker, Blow, Chambers and myself--said the “N” word should be banned, albeit for different reasons.

Dockery, an instructor at MATC, said he used the term frequently from a historical context, “I can’t teach history without being politically correct.”

Dockery said one theory was that nigger was an offshoot of the word “Niger,” as in the Niger River area of Africa. Niger means Black, as does the Spanish word Negro. The word nigger, however, took on a negative connotation in the 17th century, and was used to reference a sub human, an ignorant, lazy and uncivilized person of African decent. It became the centerpiece of bigotry and supplemented and justified the most inhumane form of slavery known to mankind.

Walker, the only female on the panel, agreed, saying nigger was used to denigrate Black people, implying “you are nothing. Our ancestors paved the way for us today, and not to understand the (hurtful connotation), calling ourselves niggers and acting out its definition,” is hypocritical at best, she assessed.

“Rappers are saying this is how I think of you; we must respect ourselves,” she said.

Dee, the only White on the panel, said, “Language has always been used to mystify and demean.” Words like “boy” carry a negative connotation when used to address adult Black men.

Interestingly, Dee never used the word nigger during his presentation, despite the interjection of a self-described half White female student who said the noun, pronoun or adjective had lost its sting, and White friends of hers have used the word in her presence. Her White “friends” feel comfortable using the word because they heard rappers and other Black people use the word with affection.

Dee theorized that banning the “n” word, like “banning (hateful) speech is counterproductive. Banning is the flip side of derogatory speech.”

Up until that point, Homer’s presentation was the most lucid, drawing the most sustained reaction from the audience, which included a handful of White students, and a mixture of students and faculty.

Homer said there are much bigger issues to be addressed by the Black community than whether nigger is an adjective or noun, or is improperly used by younger Black Americans. “How many homicides are connected to the word nigger?” he asked.

Younger Black people see the world through different prisms, he said, explaining there is a method to their madness, taking the sting out of the word, redefining it, making it a term of endearment.

Chambers agreed, adding that he was a student of history and thus understands why his parents and grandparents have an aversion to the term. But that is not the youth of today’s reality.

“We use it as a greeting; describing a friend. Younger people don’t take it as an offensive term. It doesn’t offend us; it’s part of our culture.”

Homer and Chamber’s comments opened the door for my melodramatic diatribe.

I started by staring out into the audience and asking that “all the niggers please move to the right side of the auditorium (which is appropriate given they are pawns of a slave mentality).

And all of the “culturally conscious brothers and sisters who understand your history, who recognize that through your veins flows the blood of the creators of math and science, law and medicine; those who recognize and appreciate the sacrifices of heroes like Nat Turner, Denmark Vessey, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm and Martin to bring about equality, who gave their lives to elevate our struggle; you folks move to the left.”

After that comment brought some to laughter, I then refuted the analogy of the prior two speakers, dropping the bomb that sparked a prolonged chant of oohs and ahhs.

Since Jesus the Christ was indeed a Black man, as described in the Bible, and nigger is an affectionate term for Black people, is it safe to conclude then that Jesus is a nigger?

If those who advocate for the acceptance of the word were offended by my question, so be it.

Was my comment over the top? Was it shocking, scandalous, maybe even lurid? Yes. But it was also effective.

As Black Americans, the debate over usage of the word nigger is telling; it speaks both to a generation gap but also the absence of a cultural foundation.

It is true we have used the word for centuries. But we didn’t originate it. It was used against us, and then some of us referenced it as a sign of our own self-degradation: slave-to-slave.

In essence, we contributed to our own inferiority; we fueled the fire of hatred, affirmed our status as second-class citizens.

The constitution declared us to be three-fifths of a man, it all but said we were niggers, and we accommodated that racist assumption.

I then rejected Homer’s statement that the word has contributed to the murder rate. Most of the Black-on-Black murders committed nationally are in fact hate crimes, because most are perpetrated by people who view themselves and their victims through the lens of slavery. Most Black assailants were programmed to view themselves through the prism of negritude, and thus they were acting out a slave mentality.

Thus, we have become the purveyor of hatred, self-hatred.

There is much more at stake in this phenomenon than a conflict between young and old, an African-centered culture versus the hip-hop culture.

I concluded my remarks by saying that there is a conspiracy afoot to maintain African Americans in a vacuum of second-class citizenship. We are no longer needed to pick their cotton, and the market for high tech and white-collar jobs is tight. Our greatest contribution is as consumers and poverty pawns. People get rich from our self-degradation. Thus, it is to their advantage to maintain conditions that breed and sustain our self-described inferiority.

It is no coincidence that our children are undereducated, and that we devalue education. It is not a coincidence that drugs and guns flow unrestrained in our community. It is no coincidence that the criminal justice system is slanted against us, that programs are in place to placate and numb us or that it is easier for a White high school drop-out to secure a mortgage loan than a Black college graduate.

And, it is no coincidence that we are fed a steady diet of misogynistic, violent rap, even as every effort to empower ourselves is met with opposition from those entities who say they are our friends.

We, of course, contribute to our own malice. We are living our self-fulfilling prophecy. Calling each other niggers perpetuates our status and traps us in the void they have erected for us. Out of wedlock births, the demise of the Black nuclear family, crime, abuse, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Calling each other niggers. If all of that doesn’t add up to slavery, I don’t know what does.

If you can envision Jesus as a nigger, the chains around your neck are thicker than I thought.

Hotep.