But words will never hurt me."
Remember that? Well, forget it. In this Politically Correct 21st Century, words can cut you to the quick because we've been told that.
Who believes it?
Bill Cosby believed it, in 2004:
[COSBY – speaks against the use of the word “nigger”; says it is analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us.]Jesse Jackson believed it, in 2006:
Rev. Jesse Jackson is calling for entertainers to stop using the N-word.(More at other sources, including here.)
He and other leaders held a news conference in Los Angeles Monday, calling for the voluntary ban. The move comes one day after comedian Michael Richards appeared on Jackson's radio show to apologize for his racial rant last week.
As CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports, Jackson is going after TV and film stars, as well as musicians.
Jackson says he plans to meet with TV networks, film companies and musicians to talk about what they can do to stop using the racial slur.
At Monday's news conference, Jackson and others said the insult highlights issues of racial problems in America.
"We will challenge and urge all artists and comics to stop using this word," Jackson said. "What other group is subjected to such a degrading terminology?"
But what does The Right Reverend Jesse Jackson believe in 2008?
First, he uses that same proscribe "N-Word" in his own personal conversation ...
and on the same day he verbally attacks Barack Obama, in a "private conversation", for the perceived crime of ".... talking down to black people", when Obama enjoins "Black People" to show more responsibility in their personal lives.
What does this mean? Is it an example of hypocrisy in Jackson's personal ethics, or it is a cultural phenomenon unique to American "Black people"?
I'm more inclined to believe the latter, although as an Oregon Redneck I can't profess any authority on the subject.
Still, it is a form of hypocrisy no matter what standard one uses.
Our society has become so engaged in Political Correctness that we can no longer depend on a standard of behavior, or even the Constitution of the United States of America, to provide us with basic guidelines of converse, let alone conduct.
In his famous "I Have A Dream" speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.Sadly, we have not yet reached this goal. But the obstruction is not solely due to white men with dogs, and clubs, and fire-hoses. The self-styled leaders of Black Americans find themselves unable to move beyond antiquated patterns of speech even while they rant publically against the same abuses which they themselves practice in private.
We will never rise to the standards of Dr. King as long as the insincerities of the Jesse Jackson's among us mire us in the abyss of a Politically Correct Speech to which they themselves do not subscribe.
It is time for the Black Americans to throw off the chains of 'words which hurt us', as much as it is time for the Islamics of the world to disregard sloppy and unthoughtful speech, and join the community of "words which will never hurt us".
The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America acknowledge Freedom of Speech. But this, the most precious of Rights acknowledged there-in, is the most elusive of rights and the most difficult, because it protects the speech of the most disagreeable sort.
We will never be truly free, until Jesse Jackson can call Barack Obama a "Nigger" without suffering from public approbation.
I regret that I must make the point so baldly.
PS: Jesse, I don't like Obama any more than you do (for entirely different reasons), but ... you got some Mouth on you. Don't you think you should take up the cause of Free Speech?