Piers Morgan sticks his nose into the N-word debate

Piers Morgan wrote an article for the ‘Daily Fail’ suggesting that if Black Americans want the N-word to die, they will have to kill it themselves. Asking black folks to stop using that word is nothing new, I’ve made that same request myself; the difference is I feel like I have a stake in the outcome.

What does Mr Morgan have to gain from his article? Some have called him out for seeking attention as Black Twitter (not fond of that term FYI), went HAM on him. He was told to stay in his lane and stop interfering in black folks’ business. He was accused of writing clickbait and attention seeking, and he was called a racist, but unsurprisingly, a lot of people agreed with his article.

Those who didn’t agree suggested that he was victim blaming.

Whole trick of racism is to get you to believe you put the boot on your own neck–and are holding it there.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) November 10, 2014

Even John Legend weighed in on the subject:

Morgan admits that he has no right as a white man to demand that black people stop using the word. He claims though, that as someone who believes passionately in civil rights, giving up the use of the n-word is the right thing to do.

Whether he was writing for genuine concern, for attention, or secretly seeing how many black people he could get to read that disgraceful rag, he hasn’t helped the issue, nor do I believe he has harmed the debate either. Let’s be honest: the N-word will prevail long after the world stops turning. Why? Because it’s so divisive, which makes it sticky; on one hand, you have a group of people who believe that Blacks should make the first move to stomp out the word; on the other hand, you have black people who continue to insist that reclamation is their right and that the meaning of the word has changed.

The N-word is like a river that divides us. As long as we continue to debate its use, we add fuel to the fire. Maybe if we focus on actual racism and racist behaviour, we might change racist hearts and minds. In-fighting isn’t getting us anywhere, but it encourages the likes of Mr Morgan to weigh in on the matter.