Last night, I watched Comedy Central’s Richard Pryor documentary “I’m Not Dead Yet, @!#$!%*!” Throughout the show were clips of interviews with the likes of Eddie Griffin, Mos Def, Bernie Mac, Margret Cho, Whoopie Goldberg, Robert Townsend, Jon Stewart, Dave Chapelle, Colin Quinn, Dennis Leary, Cedric “The Entertainer” and a number of others. Among the topics discussed was Pryor’s use of the ‘n-word’ in shows.

Personally, I am not a big fan of this particular word, but I accept it’s usage in the way described by Eddie Griffin: when pronounced with an ‘-er’ on the end, the word is derogatory; when pronounced with an ‘-a’ at the end, it’s a positive thing amongst brothers (his own words). Throughout this whole segment, both pronounciations were said over and over totally unbleeped. They even spelled the word out on screen. While I was watching this, I was thinking that two years ago, that word was still taboo and bleeped out. Just as I was thinking this, Colin Quinn was shown talking about it. He happens to say the word, and it is bleeped out. What the hell? Are only black people allowed to say it? I can’t remember if Margret Cho said it, so I don’t know if the rule was appllied only to Quinn or to everyone who wasn’t black.

I was pretty dumbfounded by this one little bleep. I was under the impression that the struggle for racial relations was all about equality. Doesn’t that work both ways? If so, why is this one word reserved only for one race. Why can’t the word ‘honky’ be reserved for white people. Same with ‘chink,’ ‘spic,’ ‘mick,’ ‘goomba’ and any number of other racial slurs. Is this policy following in the tradition of painting the white male as ‘everybody’s asshole’ simply because of history? I thought societies and nations were supposed to learn from history, not punish groups because of it.