Blog | Man who planned to kill Obama: That ‘n-word shouldn’t be president’ but ‘some of my best friends have been n-words’
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Maybe I’ve grown too cynical, but while reading the latest report about the latest plot to kill President Obama, I chuckled more than I was outraged.
It has been a scary thing that this president has recent more death threats than most other presidents, if not all others, which began well before he was sworn in. In 2008, he received began receiving Secret Service protection long before the other candidates because of the high threat level.
That’s not a laughing matter, no matter if you are a political supporter or opponent. It’s not good for our country. Period. Every sane person understands that, despite the hyper partisan rhetoric that too often flies from too many mouths.
I chuckled reading the latest account, not because such threats shouldn’t be taken seriously, but because of what the alleged plotter said.
"That [n-word] shouldn’t be President," Stout allegedly told the informant, adding that "some of my best friends have been [n-words[."
It’s funny because just a few days ago, a panel of “experts” on CNN had another in the long running debate about the n-word, about who should be allowed to use it, if it can have both positive and negative meanings, about how it compares to other epithets.
The quote from the alleged plotter illustrates just how silly that debate it. That word - like just about any noun in the English language - has more than one meaning, depending on the context and intent of the speaker. In this case, the n-word represented two things to the same man in one sentence.
His first use of it is clearly derogatory and demeaning, said out of disgust, hatred even. The second use of it is quite the opposite. He used it to denote some of his “best friends,” fellow human beings for whom he clearly has some level affection.
If one man can use the n-word in multiple ways in one sentence, it stands to reason that the word can be used in a variety of ways by a variety of people.
Personally, I’m not fond of the word, in rap songs, coming from the mouths of white supremacists, or anyone else. But I’m not too blind to understand that just like everything concerning the issue of race, n-word’s place in everyday conversation is much more complex than who should or shouldn’t be allowed to use it.
What’s more is that the progress we’ve made over the past few decades should be obvious to anyone who is reading a black dude in 2015 openly dissecting the finer points of the n-word and felt a chuckle, rather than a fear, when he heard it uttered by a white supremacist who is now under arrest for plotting against the nation’s first black president.
This story was originally published March 18, 2015 at 1:51 PM with the headline "Blog | Man who planned to kill Obama: That ‘n-word shouldn’t be president’ but ‘some of my best friends have been n-words’."