Words You Can't Say on Facebook

Recently, a Facebook friend had the unpleasant experience of having a post censored by the FB powers that be. She'd used a certain term to describe someone caught behaving badly in a video. The term pointed out the person's white heritage paired with a synonym for that stuff you throw away. For the Charades lovers out there -- two words, rhymes with "light hash" and "slight rash." (I'm making myself stop now. Sorry.) Anyway, you all know the term, and I won't repeat it here because, well, I don't want to risk the same censorship and deprive all three of you from reading this post. 😼

The point here is not to debate whether Facebook should or shouldn't censor posts or what words or ideas should be censored. While that is a worthy topic, it's really not my thing. As a person who thinks and writes and teaches about race, what caught my attention was the term itself. Of course, I've heard it many times, but I never stopped to think about what, exactly, makes it objectionable in racial terms. Of course the term is derogatory, but does it qualify as a racial slur, or is this just another example of an over-sensitivity about race? After all, the person in the video was white, and as I've pointed out before, simply noticing someone's race or using one's racial background as an identifier does not make one racist. So if I were to say, "the white guy in the picture is my cousin, Fred," I would not consider my comment to be racist in any way, shape, or form.

In previous writings I've also explored the phenomenon of insider/outsider status in using words that are widely considered to be racial slurs. As brilliantly depicted in the "Blackish" episode, "The Word," some people believe that what might be okay when said by an insider is definitely not okay from a person outside the group. (Note: watch the episode and you'll see that not everyone within the group agrees.) Since the person using the term banned on Facebook was of the same racial background as the person in the video (both white), does the insider rule apply here?

Maybe you think it should. Or maybe you're thinking, finally, someone sticking up for white people, even if they are light hash. But here's the problem -- while certainly meant as an insult, the term itself does not disparage white people in general. In fact, it does the opposite, because really, what is the purpose of pointing out race as part of the insult? Prefacing the disparagement with the person's race is implying that white people are supposed to be better. It's a way of saying, "look at that white person, acting beneath his or her noble race." The term itself is an example of whiteness serving as the invisible "norm" against which all other races are judged. So, when you think about it, a term meant to disparage a white person behaving badly also disparages everyone who isn't white in its assumption that whites are inherently meant to behave better. Of course, all this is subliminal, as are most of the really damaging racist ideas we hold.

Words matter. Words can hold meanings on levels deeper than we may realize.