07 June 2007

Well it was an unbelievably stupid thing to say, but was Big Brother contestant Emily really being racist when she blurted out the 'N-word'? This young lady, from my hometown Bristol (in fact, she's actually from my 'hood, a little suburb called Downend, not that I know her or anything) has been kicked-off the show in the worst possible circumstances. I hope it doesn't fuck up her life too much. But why did she say it? Surely no-one would knowingly make racist remarks knowing it was live on the telly and in the wake of the whole Jade Goody/Shilpa Shetty fiasco. With the N-word, context is everything, and I think that this is just an example of a white person using it in a clumsy, inappropriate way, rather than a deliberately offensive one. I think younger people of her generation perhaps don't fully understand the stigma attached to the word -it's so prevalent in music and films these days - whereas I can still remember as a kid all the casual racist nicknames, comments and jokes made by whites. Political correctness in the eighties helped to stamp a lot of that out. But black culture, particularly hip-hop vernacular, very successfully upended the meaning of the n-word, to a degree that is possibly unhealthy. In an ideal world, everyone should just stop saying it, but as long as it remains a so-say streetwise term in the black community, young white kids will always try to emulate what they hear. I used the word myself once in front of a black person, describing a mutual (white) acquaintance as 'my n***a'. It was a thoughtless, casual phrase which I regretted the instant it passed my lips, but to his credit the guy didn't bat an eyelid - he obviously understood the context and took no offence, for which I'm grateful. But this just proves how easily such a phrase can slip into one's vocabulary after listening to enough Snoop Dog records or Tarantino films. Young Emily applied the word incorrectly, but I don't think the world should start hating her for that. She's off the show, that's punishment enough, right?

1 comment:

  1. That whole 'can white people say nigger?' debate got real tired around the time Tarantinoi brought out 'Jackie Brown'... it's a minefield, but she was stupid to blunder into it...

    It's a farce... first off, any lingering illusion that Big Brother might be edgy or dangerous is just gone now... these are the most rigourously manipulated and policed young people outside Guatamo Bay these days...

    Second, it's clear the whole thing has become an embarrasment - Channel 4 can't let it go 'cos it's a quarter of their income, but if I was Davina's agent I'd be looking to nab a few more hair care ads....

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