Matthew Overstreet

On the Symbolic Power of “Nigga”

Chester Hanks (aka “Chet Haze”), son of Tom and semi-pro rapper, made news recently with a strident defense of his right, as a white hip-hop fan, to say the word “nigga.” His argument is basically that this word is a integral part of hip-hop culture, often signifying “camaraderie and love.” Whether you agree or not, it’s clear that Haze has a deep emotional connection to this term. As someone who studies language for a living, I’m well aware of the problems associated with (mis)appropriation and license. Still, I think it’s useful to take a closer look at what feeds this connection.

Though its origin is almost certainly apocryphal, there’s a distinction floating around online, supposed made by Tupac, between the meaning of the words “nigger” and “nigga.” The former, Tupac says, is a black man with “a slavery chain” around his neck. The latter is a black man with a gold chain around his neck. This distinction, I think, neatly encapsulates the affective power inherent in the word “nigga.” This word implies a certain movement—from oppression to self-expression, from poverty to wealth, from weakness to power. It represents the speaker seizing control of the way he or she (but usually he) is defined. In short, there’s symbolic agency inherent in this word. In light of that, we can see why some outside the black community are so eager to appropriate it.

As Haze indicates, there’s also a sense of soldiery—both racial and economic—implied by the term. In saying, “my nigga” or “niggaz like us,” one is basically saying something along the lines of “fellow resistance fighters.” I know of no other English term that has the same semantic resonance.

So could this term become widespread among white language users without losing its power? I don’t know. At the least I suspect its force would be diluted. This is perhaps one reason why many African Americans are so adamantly opposed to what seems like benign white appropriation. Mindful of this, perhaps it’s best that Mr. Haze take Ben Westoff‘s advice and start using “ninja” instead.

On Bad Writing

Rhetoric

In my last post I wrote about unsophisticated discourse. Today I’d like to discuss some of the features of such writing.

It seems to me that one of the key features of “bad” writing is a reliance on dichotomies: liberal/conservative, good/bad, etc. Of course, every academic since Derrida has warned against the dangers of binary thinking. I don’t want to join that chorus. Oppositions, binary or otherwise, can be useful– they’re a form of abstraction which allow us to cut the world into manageable bits. Of course, as online trolls and lazy students demonstrate, the power of abstraction can also be abused. So then, what distinguishes good abstraction from bad?

One key, I think, is that the writer recognize, and signal to the reader that he recognizes, that oppositions are just tools for thinking. There is, of course, no such thing as “liberal” or “conservative.” These are just symbols we use to signal a certain web of political commitments. Such a web naturally has contradictory element. A sophisticated writer/thinker knows this. For example, instead of “all liberals hate America,” she may write, “liberals have a tendency to be critical of the dominant culture.” The nuance in the latter statement indicates that the writer knows that an abstraction is just an abstraction. The former writer, on the other hand, seems to fetishize his abstraction. The term “liberal” appears monolithic to him, and therefore, he appears simple-minded to us.

Unsophisticated writers also use a lot of insults. On the clickbait website I discussed yesterday, it seems that every other post refers to someone as “stupid” or a “moran.” Why is this? Are people with low literacy skills just jerks? No. Following my always generous sensei Dave Bartholomae, I see these writers as trying to express their experience using the limited linguistic tools available to them. There is pain in their world. They have named that pain “liberal” or “Obama.” And by writing, for example, that “Obama is a hommos muslim,” they are attempting to share their subjective experience of this pain.

So in short, as a writing teacher, when I see writers resort to petty insults I want to find out what’s really bothering them. They are undoubtedly feeling some complicated stuff (all feelings are complicated). They’re just expressing it in a way that users of SWE/SBL find simplistic.

Is Literacy Inherently Liberal?

Writing

Yesterday I wandered into a dark corner of the web: the comments section of some obscure right-wing clickbait purveyor. As a writing teacher and student of rhetoric and composition, I find such spots fascinating. Some thoughts.

First, what is up with all the misspellings and crazy grammatical constructions? I ask this question in all seriousness. Let’s be clear– I am in no way a SNOOT. In fact, in my writing classes I make an exaggerated show of not caring about grammar. But still, on this particular website, almost every comment contains non-standard language. Why?

The easiest explanation is that the people attracted to right-wing clickbait (stories about hero police dogs, etc.) are simply not very “literate.” They are older, perhaps didn’t go to college. This lack of linguistic sophistication is reflected in both consumption (what they choose to read) and production (their commentary).

Let’s unpack this further. In this case, sophistication = socialization. Proper bourgeois subjects like myself (and most likely my reader) have been trained in certain habits of thought and action. These include linguistic norms and rules relating to evidence, logic and narrative coherence. We write in Standard Written English (SWE), understand the world via Standard Bourgeois Logic (SBL). Our click-baited friends, for whatever reason, have internalized different standards. To us, therefore, both their choice of reading material (“libtard teacher stomps on flag”) and language use (no distinction between your and you’re, seemingly random capitalization) seems alien.

The above is pretty basic stuff. A more interesting question is whether discursive practices and social/cultural/political values are linked. Does the internalization of SWE and SBL push learners towards a certain political alignment? Or in other words, if one can write a coherent paragraph is he or she less likely to be attracted to the ideas underlying “Obummer” clickbait?

This is a difficult question. Of course there are both left-wing and right-wing clickbait websites. And of course, one can be discursively sophisticated and hold right-wing views. It does seem though, at least from my admittedly bias perspective, that the least “literate” discourses lean conservative. Hence my titular question.

A New (Conservative) Feminism?

Higher Ed.

Like many net-dwellers, I’m fascinated by Laura Kipnis’s ongoing struggles with campus activists / university administration at Northwestern. Is this a case, as one commenter put it, of “feminism eating itself”? Let’s discuss.

First, I will admit, I love Laura Kipnis. (If you want a youngish male to flirt with in a charmingly cerebral way, professor, hit me up!). As I see it, her brand of feminism is one of female empowerment—she views women as active agents, capable of controlling their own lives, sexual and otherwise. This vision informs her rather laissez faire attitude towards professor/student relationships (the topic which sparked the current row). As Kipnis indicates, this vision of feminism is quite different than that practiced by campus activists. These subjects are primarily concerned with female vulnerability. They highlight this perceived vulnerability and often, as the Title IX action against Kipnis indicates, use it as an offensive weapon.

The ideological disparity here is fascinating. And I can’t help but think it stems from a generational gap. Kipnis, I imagine, is a product of the era of high Theory. Following Foucault, she and her cohort view power and agency as fundamentally distributed, residing in discourses and structures, rather than autonomous subjects.¹ Within such a world, power, when exercised on the interpersonal level, can always be resisted. Kipnis illustrates this point vividly in her discussion of a young female writer who is sexually pestered by a “powerful” book editor. To Kipnis, this man is “nebbish, hard to see as threatening.” To the young author though, he is apparently terrifying, an embodiment of male privilege, even when he’s Skyping in his underwear.

So if Kipnis is postmodern what is this younger generation? I don’t know. Certainly their understanding of power seems, from a postmodern perspective, strikingly retrograde: women and students are weak, men and professors and book editors are strong, etc. Like Kipnis, I worry that their rhetoric infantilizes students (and women). Like Kipnis, I suspect helicopter parenting factors in somehow.

I must note though the skill with which these young people, via their Title IX complaint, used the institutional bureaucracy to punish a perceived enemy. If there’s eating going on, they seem be the ones doing the devouring.

1) Admittedly, I have not read any of LK’s many books (though I want to!). This understanding is based solely on her recent Chronicle pieces.

Life: Pro and Con

Metaphysics

Why should we spend money on space travel? A common argument, made for example by Elon Musk, is that the exploration and eventual colonization of space is necessary to ensure the continuation of our species. As long as humans are earth-bound, the argument goes, all human life could be wiped-out by an a single event, an asteroid or supernova or something. Today I want to ask: would that necessarily be a bad thing?

I know this sounds terribly nihilistic. Allow me to explain though. First, following evolutionary theory to its fullest logic, I view human life (and human consciousness) as totally contingent, a fluke. Driven by the requirements of physical existence, humans became conscious. We developed a sense of self and time and ultimately, an awareness of our own finite nature. This self-awareness is traumatic. The inevitability of death makes consciousness itself traumatic. Following Freud, my basic claim here is that life = pain. The reduction of this pain should be the goal of all intentional action.

It seems to me that by seeking to extend the lifespan of the species, we are only seeking to extend our pain. Therefore, instead of dreaming of colonizing distance stars, we should dream of a day when our species fades away. We should (over the very, very long term, of course) de-develop, de-evolve and ultimately, de-populate. The goal is to turn back the clock. To lose our traumatic self-awareness. Maybe this isn’t possible. But maybe colonization of the stars isn’t possible either. My point is simply that on a purely logical level, the disappearance of our species, rather than its continuation, should be the utopian vision which informs our actions. To quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us [endeavor to] lose it….”

How to Write the Internet

Writing

Let’s talk about writing. Specifically, how to write for a broad audience about complicated, rather esoteric topics in a public, online forum (such as this blog). I’m a writing teacher, but at the moment, I will admit, I don’t really know what such a space requires. One of my goals in starting this blog is to find out.

Stylistically, I want to keep it simple: short paragraphs, as little jargon as possible. I want to talk about big issues in rhetoric, philosophy and education in a way that’s interesting and accessible to people both inside and outside of academia. So in a way, this project involves translation. It also involves practical application. In short, I hope to show how abstract scholarly concepts can help everyone, not just scholars, better understand the world. We’ll see how that plays out!

I may not know what I’m doing, but I do know what I like. In that regard, I’d like to present two recent articles, both from Slate.com, which I think well represent “how to write the internet.” The first is “The Myth of the Hero Cop.” Here, David Feige shows, quite persuasively, I think, how the US public’s adulation of police officers is both ill-founded and socially destructive. It’s more dangerous to be a black man in Baltimore than to be a cop—that’s a powerful claim. And it makes this article a powerful (and important) piece of public rhetoric.

The second is about little league sports. Here, Justin Peters draws upon personal experience and scholarly sources to make what I feel is a rather counter-intuitive argument about how organized youth sports basically suck. The perspective (as with the previous article) is fundamentally pragmatist, I.E. concerned with real-world thinking and being and its effect on lived experience. This is what I respect and what this blog will try to emulate.

Until next time.