Dr. Laura and the "n' word

A black woman recently called the talk-radio self-help counselor Dr. Laura Schlessinger to complain that her white husband remained silent when his friends and family made racist remarks in her presence. Dr. Laura replied that the caller was too sensitive, since black people call each other "nigger" all the time.

"Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger," Dr. Laura observed. (For a full transcript of her remarks, click here.)

That discourse provoked a public outburst that led to Dr. Laura's decision to quit radio so that she can exercise "her First Amendment rights" without fear of sponsor boycotts. (Apparently, she doesn't understand that the First Amendment protects her from government censorship, not public ire.)

This incident got me thinking about my own experiences with the "n" word. I grew up in one of the few black families in a little town in Alberta, Canada, in the 1970s. It was a time and place where black people were very scarce and political correctness was in short supply, so the "n" word was something my black friends and I heard on far too many occasions, at least in elementary school.

But by high school our white classmates had grown accustomed to us, or they'd been humbled by the fact that our handful of black kids surpassed most of them academically, or enough white kids got beaten up by one of us for uttering racial slurs. Whatever the reason, after a while I rarely heard the term.

What does "'nigger' mean?

Now I've reached the point where my intellect can see such outbursts not as oppressive toward me but as a reflection on the speaker's weak-mindedness. But emotionally it remains difficult to dismiss being dismissed.

It's true, as Dr. Laura says, that some black people use the "n" word as a term of endearment (for this purpose, the spelling and pronunciation changes to "nigga"). But the derisive intent of the epithet can't be ignored when "nigger" is used as an insult. After all, what does the word really mean? To me, it suggests that my accomplishments and strength of character are rendered inherently irrelevant as long as I'm black.

The suspicious sales clerk

This feeling can be conveyed overtly or by implication, such as when cabbies refuse to stop for even the most elegantly dressed black customers. In Europe, my friends and I were tailed around a store while the white members of our tour group were ignored. I'll never forget the sales clerk in an expensive store who assumed I couldn't buy something I'd just tried on. (Actually, I could, and did.)

Dr. Laura's suggestion that her caller was oversensitive was ridiculous even if the word "nigger" hadn't been used. Would a husband allow his friends to make fat jokes in the presence of his overweight wife? What does it say about people who deride others for characteristics beyond their control— not only one's race but one's physical appearance, name, gender, age, nationality or family background? What emotional wounds are generated by a society that routinely accepts such slights?

The performer took my pen

A few weeks ago, I arrived a few minutes early for a concert by the virtuoso organist Cameron Carpenter to find the performer shaking hands with audience members. I saw that he was signing autographs, so I got out my pen. Carpenter signed my program and continued to work the crowd, still holding my pen. Why, I wondered, had he returned another man's pen with a grandiose gesture just moments before, but not mine? Was it because I was the only black woman in the crowd? How would Carpenter have reacted had it turned out (as was certainly possible) that he and I were the only Juilliard graduates in that group? Rightly or wrongly, I found myself thinking: He probably disregarded me because I'm a black woman with an Afro who he assumes is musically illiterate. I felt like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

By the end of Carpenter's superb performance I had almost adjusted to my pen's disappearance when he emerged, post-recital, to sign CDs. I took the opportunity to ask the identity of a theme he'd chosen to improvise on. As he explained that it was a "forgotten melody that sounds like a lot of things," he pulled out my pen (a very distinctive combination of hot pink and black).

"I'm glad you like my pen," I couldn't resist saying.

He looked surprised. "Oh, is this yours? Then you must have it back."

"Oh, no. Please keep it as a memento," I insisted, turning away.

Why blacks voted for Obama

Am I oversensitive? No doubt. I wish the many race-based injuries I've experienced— deliberate and inadvertent— hadn't left such lasting scars.

Still, as I listened to Dr. Laura telling her caller, "Without giving much thought, a lot of blacks voted for Obama simply 'cause he was half-black," I couldn't help thinking: What does Dr. Laura really know about me?

I've worked very hard to value myself based on what I know about me, not the reactions of others. Still, it remains very difficult to be unaffected by the casual disrespect shown toward me and/or my race over the years. You'd think that Dr. Laura, who is Jewish, would relate to that.