Whiteness & the Bare Minimum

Instead of asking why white people shouldn’t say the n-word, ask why they want to use it at all

Of all the flimsy “free speech” hills to die on, white people arguing that it’s reasonable for them to use the n-word is surely the worst. Not only does it frame something that shouldn't be up for debate as a valid intellectual discussion—it tries to make victims out of those least victimized.

Earlier this month, for example, complaints that The New York Times reporter Don McNeil used the n-word during a 2019 Times-sponsored trip with high schoolers went public. (The students also reported that McNeil made other racist and sexist comments.) An internal investigation found that McNeil used the slur “in the context of a conversation about racist language,” and he wasn’t fired. After criticism from colleagues, however, McNeil decided to leave his longtime post at the publication. 

Then this week, Slate podcast host Mike Pesca was indefinitely suspended after arguing—in a Slack discussion about McNeil’s behavior—that white people should sometimes be able to use the n-word. (Pesca has used the slur himself several times over the years in defense of the same idea.)

Given the history and horror of this particular term, social or professional consequences for those who use or defend it should be unsurprising—mundane, even. Instead, McNeil and Pesca have been characterized as victims of a “woke mob” eager to “assault” and quash “intellectual debate.”

Putting aside how foul it is to treat the most violent slur in American history as a matter of simple debate—those who maintain this is about ‘context’ or ‘intent’ are determined to overcomplicate something that’s actually quite simple: Instead of asking why white people shouldn’t say the n-word, let’s ask why this many white people want to use it at all? Of all the words—why this one? 

After all, this slur isn’t simply said, it’s wielded. And if you’re not wielding it as a directed weapon, you’re saying it to be deliberately provocative. In either case, it’s a conscious demonstration of power.

So if you find yourself arguing that a white person can sometimes use the slur depending on context or intent, spare me the cancel culture hysterics or pontification about language and freedom. Just admit it plainly: the n-word, a term meant to diminish and dehumanize, is more important to you than the safety and comfort of Black people. 

As Slate’s Joel Anderson said in response to Pesca’s suspension: “For Black employees, it’s an extremely small ask to not hear that particular slur and not have debate about whether it’s OK for white employees to use that particular slur.”

And if basic human decency isn’t reason enough to simply not say a word, what about the ‘civility’ that conservatives are always calling for? 

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, for example, was so eager to publish a column defending the use of the n-word that when the Times declined to run it, he gave it to the New York Post.

Stephens, who frequently complains about the decline of collegiality, writes in the column that he finds the “firings [and] public humiliations” around those who use the n-word troubling. But Stephens is known for reporting colleagues that criticize him on social media, and when a professor made a barely-noticed Twitter joke calling the columnist a ‘bedbug’, Stephens found that word so offensive he attempted to get the man fired.

Are we to believe that ‘bedbug’ is a firing offense but the n-word is just discourse? Does the civility and collegiality Stephens writes about so often not extend to his Black colleagues? 

What’s clear is that those who would defend McNeil and Pesca are more concerned about the careers and reputations of individual white men than the broad chilling effect that racism has on entire industries. Why would Black reporters, editors or support staff want to work at a publication where their humanity is so casually up for debate? 

The white outrage here isn’t a concern about free speech; it’s fury that there might be consequences for bad behavior. Even more, it’s indignation over being asked to consider whiteness. Because these pundits and writers know that this is not an argument about a word—it’s about the power of those who use it.

That same resentment is why there’s an uproar over Disney’s decision to have warning labels on old episodes of The Muppets; why people like Ben Shapiro are mad that cartoons would contain frank discussions about race and racism; and why conservatives have glommed on to a former Smith librarian who says she was discriminated against because she wasn’t allowed to rap a presentation (!!) and had to attend an anti-racism training. 

Simply acknowledging that racism exists—and that whiteness plays a role—is too much for these people to bear.

In a letter from the former librarian, for example, MC Jodi Shaw writes about her extreme discomfort that diversity training facilitators asked everyone to talk about their racial identity. And this month, when New York City parents were asked to reflect on their whiteness as part of an anti-bias curriculum, there was immediate criticism of the lesson being “hostile” to white people.

But being asked to think about your whiteness—how it skews the power you have, the way you interact with the world, and the words you use—is not ‘reverse racism’. Discomfort is not bigotry. 

The truth is that white people are being asked for the bare minimum—don’t say racist slurs, remember racism exists. Attempts to make it more complicated than that are silly and suspect.

Just something to think about the next time you feel like having a ‘debate’ over someone’s humanity.