[From the Pic Newsletter March 1994, Volume II, issue iii]
Logophobia--the fear of words or of speech--is not in my American Heritage Dictionary. But if the term does not exist, it should. We need a label to denote the spiritual disease that's now epidemic in all segments of our society. As a longtime supporter of the civil-rights movement, it especially saddens me that logophobia has infected it and weakens it. I hope that the infection will be short-lived.
An outbreak of logophobia occurred in early February in Sacramento, California when the Sacramento Bee published an editorial-page cartoon by longtime Bee artist Dennis Renault. Two Ku Klux Klansmen are discussing a remark by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. One hooded Klansman says to the other, "That nigger makes a lot of sense." The intent of the cartoon is obvious to anyone whose thinking is not muddled by logophobia. One can, of course, legitimately disagree with the intent, but Renault has the First Amendment right to state his point. And the suggestion that hooded Klansmen are being held up as models for emulation is patently absurd.
The Bee, of course, apologized during the subsequent uproar, but that didn't satisfy Nate White, president of the local chapter of the NAACP. White called for the firing of Editorial Page Editor Peter Schrag. A boycott was started and (according to White) over a thousand people phoned or wrote the Bee to cancel their subscriptions.
Another victim of logophobia is DeLores Tucker, chairwoman of the National Political Congress of Black Women. She recently testified before Congress demanding a rating system for rap music. In what sounded like a quote from James Dobson or Lou Sheldon, Tucker said, "Because this pornographic smut is in the hands of our children, it coerces, influences, encourages and motivates our youth to commit violent behavior." She also said that Martin Luther King "would be deeply saddened by those in our community who abuse and misuse the freedom of speech by dehumanizing, demeaning and degrading our own women." Martin Luther King respected everyone's freedom of speech and would never have tried to censor someone. He used his own powerful verbal gifts always to counter, never to silence, those who sought to dehumanize, demean or degrade.
Someone who understood the evil of logophobia as few ever have was the late Lenny Bruce. Logophobia eventually took away his career and his life but it never conquered him. In a famous routine Bruce began by asking the audience, "Are there any niggers here tonight?" If Lenny were alive and tried that today, he would get no further. He would be shouted down and booed off stage. In the 60s he was destroyed by the guardians of traditional morality. Today "liberal" stormtroopers would banish him.
Lenny's opening line, of course, was received with gasps of shock. He continued--asking about kikes, fags, wops, what have you. And then he talked about why we fear these terrible words. About how our fear turns them into powerful weapons. Lenny asked us to think about these words, to defuse them, to rob them of their power.
Lenny would have admired the work of James Montford, an African-American artist and instructor at the Fine Arts Center of the University of Rhode Island. In October, Montford tacked 34 plastic sandwich bags containing locks of human hair on a wall with the question: "CAN YOU FIND THE NIGGER HAIR?" An offended passerby eventually sliced the word out of the caption. In December, he installed an exhibit at Hampshire College (site of two NWU Delegates Assemblies) involving basketballs, black tape, and a mythological story involving fried chicken. In response, the cowardly thought police who constitute the majority of the Hampshire faculty defeated a resolution affirming "the right of all members of the College community to the free expression of views in speech or in art." (This is something we must consider before using Hampshire facilities in the future. Can we hold a DA at a facility where freedom of speech isn't respected?)
During February, Montford had another controversial installation at the Fine Arts Center. It was called "The `N' Word." The exhibit consisted of a series of questions and their stereotypical racist answers on the opposing wall. Montford predictably is an opponent of campus hate-speech codes. In defense of his work, Montford says, "I'm about maybe demystification of some of those words, to take some of the power away from those words." He also said, in reference to the power of these words, "When you look at a five-year-old kid and when you see how that child responds to being called those words, then you understand how deep it goes." (The Providence Phoenix, 2/4/94).
Montford's remark echoes the concluding line of Lenny Bruce's routine. I don't remember it word for word, but this is more or less how it went. In a tender voice, Bruce says, "If we can rob these words of their power, then maybe a day will come when no little kid will ever again have to run home in tears because somebody called him a nigger."
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