Yesterday in a New York publication written by James Collier, The President of the United States was referred to as the n-word. Yes, America’s level of disrespect has just soared to a new level of absurdity. In the piece titled ‘The N***** in the White House’, Collier’s aim was to shock and appall readers into seeing the light. The term ‘post racial society’ has been thrown around ever so cavalierly in an effort to mask, modern injustices, and dissuade the public from believing what is right in front of our very eyes. Shocking and appalling is just the tip of the iceberg, Collier certainly achieved, and superseded his goal. The work calls for American’s to realized that racism is still alive and well. In the article Collier says, “These far right voters hate Obama because he is black. The simple truth is that there is still in America an irreducible measure of racism”. Despite the article being a ‘Pro-Obama’ piece the riveting charge of the traumatic history behind the n-word still consumes Black Americans. A fellow writer, and colleague to Collier published a piece along side his shock value work, titled ‘The Headline Offends Me’. Alvin Hall quickly reacted to the piece, upon hearing the editor, George Capsis, was still moving forward with the publication of Collier’s article.
“For me, just seeing the n-word in a headline or in an article always makes me bristle. I feel a knot of indignation, disgust, and anger form in my gut”, Hall writes. There is no question that most African American’s can identify with his sentiment. Although Collier’s aim was to force America to take self-inventory, it seems to have merely given all those melanin deficient a license to use the word under the guise of freedom of speech, and provoking journalism. The Internet is riddled with news outlets reverberating the articles title with the n-word fully spelled out. All across the Internet in big capital letters the President of the United States has been reduced to less than a human being.
Sadly, the truth is that Collier is right in titling his article with such blunt harshness. It is unfortunate that there are people who think, believe and have said the exact phrase themselves. Will America ever evolve into a truly ‘post racial society’? Will Black American’s ever be seen as actual human beings, rather than detestable creatures taking up space in this Euro-stolen world?
