Not everyone accepts that over-exposure is sufficient to destroy evil: some argue that "nigger" is too robust to be so easily disposed of. Rapper Ashley Walters renounced his own infatuation with the word after hearing from a child victim of playground bullies. There are also those who believe the the removal of the taboo would trivialise the legacy of racial oppression. Other hate-labels have been eliminated successfully through a recognisable cycle of decontamination.
First, the target-group reclaims the insult and starts flaunting it as a badge of collective pride. After a time-lag, this usage seeps through to the general population. As this happens, the word in question is gradually drained of its malign potency. Having lost its point, it then disappears completely, liberating its former victims for ever from a once-effective instrument of abuse.
The word "queer" has been through this process. No replacement has emerged. There's no doubt that "nigger" is well into stage one of this progression.
A few maintain that its widespread use among black people reflects only self-hatred, or internalisation of white-racism of the kind displayed by Samuel L Jackson's "house nigger" in Django Unchained. However, this is patent nonsense.
Garrett Gravley was born and grew up in Dallas. He mostly writes about music, but veers into arts and culture, local news and politics. Don't Miss Out. Join Today. Sign Up. I Support Learn More. Latest Stories. Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day. December 15, pm. Related Stories. Related Story Samuel L. Surgeon General Response. And I knew where I was, what the neighborhood was like. My landlord had seemed disappointed when he told me he'd thought I was Indian. A year before, not far from where we stood, I'd seen a friend handcuffed for looking like a suspect.
The guy was saying: You don't belong here. You're not safe. You're not a full-fledged human being, like us. That's how it felt when I heard the slur in "The Hateful Eight. He's never been on the receiving end of that particular blow. He doesn't know the sting. I wondered: Why hadn't I heard the word that way in his movies before? Why did it sting so much in "The Hateful Eight"? Jackson won't bite the hand that helped launch him from bit player to full-on Hollywood legend. The n-word, he says, is just a way to be true to the period and setting of Tarantino's movies.
At screenings of the film, Tarantino and Jackson have said that they use the word to stay true to the movie's setting, post-Civil War Wyoming. The racial subject matter, they say, is meant to make us think about race and have a conversation about it. And yes, definitely, "The Hateful Eight" had me thinking about race. Specifically, I was thinking about the lack of progress that Tarantino has made in addressing race in his films. The film's treatment of the subject doesn't go anywhere.
We don't become desensitized to the n-word. And I was appalled by the scene where spoiler alert!
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