excuse me while i dish out some social commentary

Yesterday on my way to the train station I walked almost the entire route about ten feet in front of a guy who was talking to himself. Loudly.

At first I assumed he was on the phone, since that is what one wants to assume when someone is talking loudly alone on a street at no one in particular. But as I continued to hear snippets of his "conversation" it became clear to me that he was doing some sort of stand-up routine. He was talking constantly, pausing for a few seconds every now and again but certainly not enough to really be having a conversation with someone. I told myself maybe he was on the phone with someone doing this stand-up routine, or maybe he was recording himself. I tried really hard not to allow for the possibility that he was, in fact, just talking to himself.

Which he was.

Anyhow, about half-way through his little bit, he started dropping the N-word. Profusely and at will, like he was using it to pick off civilians from the top of a water tower. I've never been a fan of the word, but I think in that moment it really hit me what it is I detest so much about it. It's just an ugly word. I don't care how you've reclaimed it, or what you think it means. It's ugly. It comes from an ugly past, it's used to hurt people and keep people down. It's ugly. And I don't care if -- like the wannabe comedian walking to the train station behind me -- you're black. Because guess what? It still doesn't make it okay.

That's like me saying, hey. I'm a woman. And that means it's okay for me to call other women sluts, on that basis alone. Because it's a derogatory word about women, but not when one woman uses it to refer to another woman. Then it's okay, because we're both women! Get it?

No. No, I don't, actually. An ugly, insulting, hurtful word is what it is. I don't care who you are, who you're saying it to and why you think it's okay. Because regardless of all those variables, when you use the word, I lose respect for you.

Like the stand-up comedian, who walked up next to me near the station and asked me if I had overheard the routine he was doing. Other than thinking he was crazier than a shithouse rat for talking to himself loudly and shamelessly on a residential street and so therefore not having just a whole lot of respect for him to begin with, my opinion of him was determined by his vocabulary. And that opinion was bottom-feeder low.

When he asked me what I thought, I told him I wasn't really listening for content. And in fact, after he started letting the N-word fly, I was trying not to listen at all. He laughed nervously and turned the corner while I continued walking straight toward the station.

God knows I love to swear, y'all. God knows I do. On an average day I would make a sailor look like an altar boy. I've always said Saturday Night Live would be funnier if network television censors would allow for more swearing. But that word does not register for me as a swear word. It's more like a not-worth-saying word. A makes-me-think-less-of-you word. A perhaps-you-should-step-up-your-vocab word.

You'll have to excuse me. Sometimes my bleeding heart liberal shows out of the bottom of my dress. Let me tuck it back in.

(Social commentary, out.)


cheers,
elizabeth