The En Word

The alphabet has 26 letters, but it is the fourteenth that is among the toughest for African Americans. En. Oh en, how we loathe thee.

There are two critical en words for African Americans and for Black folk in America: n*gger and noose.

En reminds us who America would have us be and the place America would have us assume. It doesn’t matter what we say or how we say it, some of y’all just can’t leave those words alone.

En word number one 

Recently, Bill Maher referred to himself as a house n*gger.

Dear Bill,

If you’re a house n*gger, I have questions.

What plantation did you and your people work at?
How many times was your family brutalized to ensure your continued malleability?
How many *comfort* appointments did your wife have to keep?
How many babies did your wife have to nurse (while your own went without)?
How many times were you raped either by men or by objects as a means of control or for someone’s sexual gratification?

How many comfort appointments have you had to keep?

Maher says, “Ha! Ha! I’m a house n*gger!” cuz ha! ha!, that slavery business was so funny. I’m pretty sure Bill’s lily hindparts couldn’t survive five minutes of what Black folk across the world have survived for five generations. Ha, ha indeed. The power of privilege: makes it possible for you to joke about things for which no punch line truly exists. Rape? Sodomy? Murder? So very funny! Can’t stop laughing!

Blackness is so entertaining, so fun, right up ‘til the Black tax gotta be paid.

If Bill wants to be black, somebody might need to remind him that it’s a package deal. He doesn’t get to pick, choose, and refuse. Nope. That’s not how this works. Black? You get it all: the good, the bad and the very, very ugly too. The segregation, the lynching, the domestic terrorism, the being spat upon, the dogs, the water hoses, all of it. You don’t get to be a house n*gger for shits and giggles Billy Bob. That’s not how this works.

Despite the millions of words in the English language, despite the number of made up words (‘covfefe’ anyone?) out there, despite the number of interesting portmanteaux available for use, there are some White folk who just cannot get the word ‘n*gger’ out of their mouths. Folks like Bill. Why is that d’you think?

Here’s my take: it’s not the allure of the forbidden fruit. And it’s not the cool points either. Nah. It ain’t that. It’s that they want to commit the sin; they want to inflict the harm. Bill knows that that word inflicts harm. As sketchy as our history books are, Bill and others like him know that word preceded brutality of some sort. They know that word was tossed around as Rosewood and other prosperous Black communities were being destroyed, their inhabitants brutalized or murdered; they know that word was bandied about when enslaved people were beaten; they know that word was being used as women like Sally Hemmings were being raped; they know that word was the last one Emmett Till heard as he was killed and they know it was the word in the mind of the men who killed Martin and Medgar. They know all this. And still, they want the word in their mouths. The question has to be asked: WHY?

The truth is that they want to be on the front lines to see the burning flesh but they want plausible deniability when it comes to the actual lynching.

They want to experience the thrill of brutality without the blood and gore. And this word is brutality. Let’s not pretend that it’s not.

Or maybe they don’t. Maybe none of that is true, but they just gotta say the word. But the word is loaded with all that weight. This word too is a package deal. Kinda like Blackness itself. Package. Deal.

Think about the package Bill and get back to me.

En word number two

Picture from TheRoot.com

Over the last two or three months, nooses have been found at American University, at the University of Maryland at College Park (where Richard Collins III was stabbed to death by a White supremacist for not stepping aside) and at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. On Tuesday June 5^th, a sixth noose was found at a DC area construction site.

There’s nothing like a noose to tell a n*gger what is what, who is in charge and how close he/she is to crossing into ‘unacceptable Black behavior’ territory. I tell you, there is nothing like a noose.

In the Age of Trump, we seem to have returned to an era wherein both the noose and the original en word are again in fairly common use. Who'da thunk it? Who would have imagined that this was a space to which we would one day return? Who? MLK Jr. Marcus Garvey. Malcolm Shabazz. James Baldwin. Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). That’s who. They all would. Why? Because they knew America. They understood keenly the performance of American Whiteness. They knew America better than she knew/knows herself. We do too.

White liberals like Bill have spent the last hundred and fifty years missing the point and they are committed to missing the point for a hunned fiddy more. POC, hoping and praying for allies in the fight of our lives, have given them a pass. No more. I’m calling your asses out.

En, the fourteenth letter of the alphabet. N*ggers and nooses.

Carry on.