If President Obama can say it, you can too

According to the rules of our taboo, black people are allowed to use the word (including with one another to mean “buddy,” a complex matter in itself) because we have been the ones subjected to its abusive usage. Yet, it seems almost as awkward when the president, a black person, uses the word in that way as when a white one does.

Is that because using the word even to refer to it should be considered beneath the dignity of anyone regardless of color? I suspect that analysis misses something. To many, hearing blacks use the N-word, even to refer to it, is awkward because of how arbitrary it seems that whites are tarred as racists when they, too, are simply referring to it.

For example, I myself occasionally use the actual word in just the way that Obama did in my classes, when a societal issue comes up and I want the rhetorical clarity of the word itself rather than a coy euphemism. Occasionally one of my more vocal white students has jokingly commented “See, you can say it!” The comment carries an implication (which he would never venture out loud) that it seems a little arbitrary that I am allowed to say it just because I’m black. I just say “Yep!” and we all laugh a little and move on. But we know it feels arbitrary, not quite fully thought out, that they aren’t allowed to use the word even to refer to it.