Dr. Laura Quitting Radio to Regain Her First Amendment Right to Say "Nigger"?

All I can do is shake my head.  Black and white folks alike who you think could use their common sense to navigate the issue of race just don't.  Sure, race is a complicated mess, but in this country we've been enmeshed in this issue for so long, that there are some elementary elements of this divisive issue that we ought to know our way around by now.
If you hadn't tuned in last time, Dr. Laura used the word "nigger' several times in her response to a black woman calling for advice about how to deal with her white husband and his friends racially insensitive comments. She apologized the next day for having used the word at all and repeatedly saying it.

  Following her apology, she appeared on the Larry King Show and announced she planned to leave radio:

She wants to regain her First Amendment rights to say what she wants to say? Really? In the wake of this dumb controversy that she created by jumping out of her own bag of unfounded racial indignation on an unsuspecting caller, its her position that she has been denied her rights to free speech? My post title is facetious, but its got a bit of accuracy to it. What are you saying Dr. Laura? That you want to regain your first amendment right to say "nigger"?  Its so very disappointing to see someone of obvious intelligence operate within such a huge blind spot of prejudice and stereotype.  I've listened to her show for years. She's not racist in my opinion, but she has bought into very prejudiced, stereotypical habits of thinking about race, a soft bigotry if you will.  For someone who can be so insightful and challenge others to rethink their assumptions, when confronting the issue of race, Dr. Laura is too caught up in this soft bigotry to step back and see where she's missing the boat:

• On the use of the word nigger between blacks, she's wrong: black comics using vulgar humor for paying adults on HBO are not representative of how blacks deal with each other daily.  There are subsets of black people (some black comics, a lot of our young people) who refer to other blacks with the word "nigger" routinely.  But thats not the majority of black people talking to each other.  In point of fact, the average black person would be offended by other blacks calling them nigger, let alone other white people.  You labor under a mistaken impression if you believe that the majority of blacks routinely address each other using this vulgarity.  Its not true. It irritates me to no end that many black people responding to this minor controversy don't make this point.
• As I heard someone on the radio this morning say, the whole "nigger" piece of this is what's making people pay attention, because the good Dr. is getting a pass for the other piece of soft bigotry in what she had to say, namely her statement that most black people voted for Obama because he was half black and we didn't think or care about what he might actually do.  You gotta love that: presumably, all white people conduct a searching examination of the issues when they cast their vote, but black folks just vote their color and don't think at all.  #1That is an arrogant and bigoted statement. #2 Black people voted for Obama because he was capable, qualified and bonus, he looked like us (IMO).  Folks that didn't vote for Obama (white or black) obviously didn't think the first two were true and were not swayed by the last, but for Dr. Laura or any other white person to say that his racial identity was the only reason blacks voted for Obama is a bigoted statement, point blank. #3. In America, last time I checked, you could vote for anybody you wanted to, for whatever reason you wanted to: because of the race of the candidate, because you wanted to influence primary elections and create riots in the streets. (Operation Chaos anyone?) or because you think they are cute.  You get to exercise the franchise any way you damn well please.
• This trivial debacle has now descended into the "I'm a victim" arena and its quite off putting coming from Dr. Laura. Nobody has taken your free speech rights Dr. Laura and you don't get to control how people express their disagreement with you.  You said what you said, you meant what you meant.  People are free to voice their disagreement to your sponsors, advertisers, etc. You don't decry such behavior when people on the right that agree with you deploy the same freedoms against leftist commentators they don't like.  And all of it flows because you don't have a principled, defensible stand on this issue. You engaged in a bunch of stereotyping of black people, erroneously asserting we call each other nigger all the time, that we voted without thinking for Obama because he was black and you luxuriate in saying "nigger" repeatedly out of some weird misplaced pique that white people can't say it. All of that to a black female long time fan of the show who called to get some relationship advice, which she never got because you could not resist the opportunity to get your racial indignation rocks off. 

Here's a bit of discussion on the topic also from CNN.  How the heck is it that Tim Wise has got the most commonsense on this?

   I wondered when the caller herself might surface as well and caught this piece of interview with Nita Hanson, who was on the receiving end of this and seems like a nice enough person.

 Hearing her perspective was interesting. She's in an interracial relationship and those relationships are often the brunt of a lot of disapproval. They are embodiments of the racial divide in some ways and to hear Ms. Hanson talk about crying jags and being hurt and confused strikes me as a tad silly.  This is not old news.  She was a fan of the show (as am I) so I don't quite get the surprise that Dr. Laura went all mercurial on her.  Fellow blogger Constructive Feedback thought "Two members of an interracial couple should expect to deal with the fact that we do not live in a "color blind society".  I think I'm inclined to agree.  She sounds overly surprised at the idea that they would encounter insensitivity in the course of their union.
I do think she has a very legit beef in terms of her husband's reaction to some of the crap.  She describes a scenario where racially themed questions and comments keep coming up over and over, some of them probably insensitive at best and probably full of the same soft bigotry Dr. Laura put on display during the call. The interviews mainly left me thinking where the heck is her husband? Right now, not having heard from the guy, he comes off seeming like a bit of a jerk, participating in or permitting a lot of racially insensitive commentary around his wife from his friends and family.  She called in about his butt, I'm waiting to hear a little from him.  Whoo boy, I'll bet this whole deal is way more than he thought he was getting into when he married a black woman. LOL!

• You won't have Dr. Laura to kick around anymore (pinkbananaworld.com)
• Dr. Laura Has Black Friends, Only Apologized "Because She Got Caught" [Race Matters] (jezebel.com)
• Palin: Dr. Laura no racist (politico.com)
• Sarah Palin Twitters in Support of Dr. Laura Don't Quit Re-Load (nowpublic.com)

 Exit Link: The founder of the site Abolish the N Word is one of the panelists in the CNN clip above.  I actually find the site to be a thoughtful response about in community use of the word.

Dr. Laura: For White People Who Have Considered Saying "Nigger" When Common Sense Was Enough

Apologies to Ntzotke Shange. I've been a Dr. Laura fan for years. I started listening to her show on WJR when I lived in Detroit.  I recall the first time I listened to the show and being appalled at her comments and thinking she was a horrible and mean person.  There were other advice shows on the air with hosts who were nice to their callers.  But Dr. Laura was not about coddling people as she handed out her moral opinions.  Though I at first found her objectionable, I kept listening and over time, came to appreciate the fact that she's actually a very insightful person.  In church language, she has a perceiver motive gift.  She can gain insight into a situation with only a bit of information or observation. And while she can be harsh and stern with her callers, I have again and again heard her on her show demonstrate tremendous compassion and empathy, at times towards people I didn't think there was any thing to empathize with them about. I have also heard her help a lot of people with her advice.  Don't let the Listerine delivery cause you to miss the value in her advice.

But Dr. Laura, like many of us, black and white, has a bit of blind spot when it comes to race. That blind spot was on display in this call to her show from a black woman married to a white man who called for advice about how to handle what she deemed racially insensitive comments from her husband's family and friends.  Check the audio.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Laura got a boatload of criticism for her response and subsequently apologized.
Her apology seemed sincere enough, at least in the reading of it.  But its clear from the apology and from the conversation with her caller Jade, that Dr. Laura was off base in a variety of ways that I'd like to lift up for some examination.  Responding to Jade, Dr. Laura asserts that black guys use the slur "nigger" all the time.

Schlessinger:"Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO and listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger. I don't get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. But when black people say it, it's affectionate. It's very confusing."

Jade: Is it OK to say that word? Is it ever OK to say that word?

Schlessinger: It depends how it's said. Black guys talking to each other seem to think it's OK.

Jade: But you're not black, they're not black, my husband is white.

Schlessinger: Oh, I see, so a word is restricted to race. Got it. Can't do much about that.

First, the main thrust of her argument to the caller which is often referenced by people in arguments about the slur "nigger", namely that  black people use it in conversation with each other, comics use it copiously and so on.  I'm sorry, but this is a stupid argument based on the false premise that black people routinely and casually use the word "nigger" to refer to each other. Its not true.   Despite the unfortunate prevalence of this racial vulgarity in popular culture created by and targeted at urban youth, many blacks find it to be an offensive and unwelcome vulgarity whatever the color of the person speaking. Dr. Laura actually attempted a bit of an argument for context which would have been somewhat sensible, but misapplied it. She jumped from raunchy black comics talking to adults in HBO programming to the blanket idea that black people use that terminology on each other routinely. Thats a leap.

People, this isn't complicated, its plain common sense.  I don't walk around thinking that it would be appropriate to use the word "bitch" in reference to women, despite the fact that I hear women saying it in the popular culture all the time and the same common sense logic applies here.  Moreover, Dr. Laura's point about observing black comics in pop culture programming using the term is an exercise in stereotyping.  While it is entirely true that black comics routinely use the word "nigger", that's a small subset of the black population. That group is not broadly representative of black Americans in general.  Yet Dr. Laura looks at  the raunchy language of black comics and extrapolates that to the entire black population.  Its inaccurate stereotyping. Some people observe that many urban youth commonly use the word "nigger" in reference to each other in casual conversation ,and that's accurate. However, its also true that most adult black people are chagrined and embarrassed by the way which this vulgarity has become very common in the everyday language of urban youth.  We wince at hearing it, just like we metaphorically throw up a little in our mouths every time we see young black men in sagging pants with their underwear hanging out. Popular culture amplifies this vulgar behavior, thus the mistaken idea that its common among all blacks. Its not.

Her caller, Jade, had a bit of a blindspot too.  Her comments suggested that she subscribed to the idea that using the term "nigger" was acceptable if you were black, but not if you were white. White people react to that because it seems arbitrary.  If its okay when a black person says it, why isn't it okay for a white person? The reality is that in 2010, there is a bit of arbitrariness to this unwritten social rule. But there is nothing magical about why it doesn't go over well when a white person uses this vulgarity for any reason. #1 We're not all walking around calling each other "nigger". I know pop culture tv shows and videos and comics make it seem that way, but you're extrapolating from the behavior of a subset of black people to the whole group.  The majority of the group does not behave that way. So if most of us don't routinely use the word nigger to each other (and we don't) white people have no basis to be mad when we object to you using it either. #2 history is relevant.  There was a time in America when you could be called a nigger by a white person and be killed if you dared to object.  That went on for a few hundred years.  Times have changed, but its no surprise that a word so bound up in a history of oppression, violence and degradation should have a continuing stigma and taboo attached to it. And even if you think "hey, times have changed, don't  be so sensitive", see #1 again. This is the point that Jade should have made to Dr. Laura in response to the bit about comics.

 The social stigma around the word "nigger" also mirrors a practical, commonsense reality which is that I can't really think of very many situations that call for the average white person to use the  racial slur "nigger" in a sentence around the average black person, for any reason. Just doesn't happen very often. And guess what, the same is largely true when black people are talking to other black people.  Simple self test you can try if you're a white person reading this: can you think of a situation where it would be appropriate to use the word "nigger" in a sentence in the company of any black person you know?  The reality is that the majority of black people don't go around calling each other nigger all day.  There is a subset of the population (urban youth) that refers to each other this way quite frequently, but they are not representative, merely more visible via pop culture.  So, if you share Dr. Laura's frustration that a white person simply is not permitted to use the word "nigger" without suffering severe social opprobrium,  get over it. You're laboring under a mistaken impression.

And oh yeah, for the record; I'm still a big Dr. Laura show fan. 

So-Called "Race Realism": A Reaction

If you go to Wickipedia, it explains "race realism" as the claim that races are real rather than social constructs, and that racial distinctions are enduringly important because racial groups differ by nature (genetically) with regard to such important behavioral tendencies as intelligence and impulsiveness. This claim holds that racial distinctions are real and measurable, and further claims those measurable differences are based in science instead of idealism. Examples of scientifically demonstrable racial distinctions are said to include different decision and reaction times, intelligence, crime rates, and medical characteristics, such as differing tendencies toward diseases such as osteoporosis or sickle cell anemia.^[1] Critics often claim that racial realism is a euphemism for scientific racism. I would agree.

Dennis Mangan is the author of the blog Mangan's Adventures in Reaction and describes his views on race in various ways, one of those self descriptors being that of a "race realist". His way of explaining this viewpoint in an April 2009 post responding to James Collier of the blog Acting White: "it merely means the recognition of persistent racial differences in biology and behavior."  He further self describes himself  as " nothing other than a patriotic American, white and race-conscious to be sure, who wants to stop the rising tide of immigration and the declining proportion of whites in the country."
One of the commenters to this April 2009 post, Latte Island, in their comment, said the following

"I think the harsh tone of many race-realists, and I plead guilty here, is pushing back against the threat of losing our right to do our culture with people we choose freely"

From my viewpoint, I experience a choking level of incredulity in reading a statement like the above. Does such a statement stem simply from prohibitions against discrimination in some private settings and things of that order? Its never seemed to me that whites have difficulty doing their own thing amongst themselves. Isn't this what the defacto segregation of large swaths of America's neighborhoods and certainly her houses of worship is all about?

More broadly, this seems to me merely intellectual rationalization for why people don't want to live around people of other races, unless you are in a position of numerical, financial, political, military or other superiority. That would be okay, then you could deal with it, otherwise, separation is desired.

Mangan's commentors wonder aloud as to why someone who is not white would regard this "race realism" as sinister or threatening? That someone like me would not immediately conclude that this way of thinking applied to the world I live in, is antithetical to the interests of those I care about? That a world crafted to fit these ideas is not a world that would welcome my children?

Often this conversation Mangan's readers are having with each other strikes me as merely studied and practiced exercises in convincing themselves that their race based antipathy does not spring from the same source as the "white nationalists, Nazis, skinhead" types which they disavow.

I think its instructive, enlightening and should at least give them pause that this conversation, these ideas routinely attract this unsavory racist element. Why does that not give them some indication that perhaps there is something aberrant, perhaps even abhorrent, about these ideas and the conclusions they lead to?

I note from past conversations, that a response like mine often engenders a fierce response from adherents to these "race realist" views that I simply do not understand, that indeed I am to inculcated in multiculturalism and other traps of lazy thinking to cogitate with any objectivity on these things of which they speak.

I think not. I would in fact submit that the value of an idea or philosophy can be judged in part by its utility. I ask, of what utility is any ideology that must posit the alleged inferiority of one human being as against another to derive its energy or merit? Indeed, the very racists and supremacists which Mangan's philosphy attracts is partial evidence for the inherent error of this point of view. There are few ways in which one might apply this philosophy, this set of intellectualized prejudices, that would not be harmful to those whom race realism views deem as undesirable. That should be damning of these views alone, the fact that there is scarcely any way in which these ideas, implemented as social or political policy, would not result in terrible and grievous harm to those not favored by it. I cannot imagine a society fueled and organized by this way of thinking in which a decent human being would want to live. Dennis and his intellectual compatriots can. We look upon each other across a great divide.