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Last spring I
wrote a column speculating on the motives behind a spate of schoolyard shootings
then in the news. I had plenty of company; the entire country struggled for
answers.
My view was
that lacking a firm moral grounding, some have substituted self-justification.
In a world without absolutes, I said, “... we’re so eager not to appear
judgmental that we fear even simple discernment. People who’ve never cracked a
Bible thou-shall-not-judge you to death, smugly ignorant of what the phrase is
meant to teach ... In place of right and
wrong, rationalization has become a moral standard for many.”
That sentiment
prompted a comically critical “Letter To The Editor” from a fellow who thought
the word “rationalization” meant I believed that shooting school children was a
rational thing to do. Though the man went on to cite the works of Camus,
Nietzche, and Hobbes, his extensive collection of literature apparently lacked a
dictionary. It is also possible that he was referring to Hobbes the comic strip
tiger rather than Hobbes the 17th century social theorist, but I
can’t be sure.
Besides a good
chuckle and another clipping for the album, I suffered no lasting harm from the
misunderstanding. Not so lucky is David Howard, a white aide to Washington,
D.C. mayor Anthony Williams, who is black. Howard had the misfortune last week
to make national news when his use of the word “niggardly” during a staff
meeting was interpreted as a racial insult.
He also lost his job. Mayor Williams accepted his aide’s offer of resignation
even while acknowledging that the word has no derogatory connotation.
On the off
chance my Camus-quoting friend still visits this column, Webster’s New World
Dictionary defines “niggardly” as meaning stingy, miserly, or scanty. Had
Howard addressed his predominately black colleagues as “you niggards,” a double
entendre might have reasonably been inferred, but his use of the phrase in
describing a fund he managed was plainly in proper context. The word has
Scandinavian roots and predates the vulgar American slur with which it was
evidently confused.
When you
misunderstand someone and then jump down his or her throat, the proper response
when corrected is generally “I’m sorry.” That is not just this white writer’s
opinion; no less than NAACP director Julian Bond opined that it “seems to me the
mayor has been niggardly in his judgment on this issue. You hate to think you
have to censor your language to meet other people’s lack of understanding.”
Yet so it will
be as long as others in positions of leadership fear to inject a little
rationality (as opposed to rationalization) into the debate. It’s nothing new:
a boycott of certain food products was organized awhile back by folks who
decided that the “K” used to designate “kosher” indicated support for the Ku
Klux Klan, a group out of Florida branded the use of a talking Chihuahua in the
Taco Bell ads a “hate crime,” and still others have long protested Proctor &
Gamble’s moon-and-stars logo as an emblem of witchcraft.
This national cocktail of hypersensitivity and ignorance, spiked by a dread of
even gently correcting anyone, is long past tiresome. It’s tempting to avoid
the hassle by refraining in any context from words like cracker, honk, chink,
kite, renege, jewelry, spick and span, whopper, chicanery, grease, and nip. Not
to mention harass, funk, titillate, Uranus, papal, Virginia, pianist, Volvo,
thespian, Homo sapiens, dastard, hoard, hoary, sects, screwdriver, and dam.
For you
“Seinfeld” fans, “Delores.” And “ginko biloba,” just because I don’t like the
sound of it.
As I noted in the column on school shootings, “I suppose that if you’re going to
put opinions in the newspaper every week, complete with your name and photo, you
ought to be prepared to accept the consequences of your convictions.” The same
goes for public servants like David Howard.
The problem is that you never know what the trigger might be. And until we stop
looking for offense where none is given, we never will.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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