Black Fragility

What is in a word?

On the 17th of February, Vinicius Junior traveled to Benfica and scored a fantastic goal. He celebrated enthusiastically by humping the corner flag in a suggestive manner. This celebration was lewd enough that the referee gave him a yellow card for it. How can you give me a yellow flag for pretending to fuck the corner flag, Vinicius must have thought. This is Benfica, not the Favela, the referee must have thought.

To worsen matters, Prestianni, a 19-year-old Benfica player with enough tattoos for you to think he actually belongs in a Favela, walks up to Vinicius to confront him for his behavior. He covers his mouth while speaking so that pesky fans cannot read his lips and expose his secret thoughts. And what secret thoughts were these? Thank you for asking that question. Mbappe says Prestianni called Vinicius a “mono,” which is the Spanish name for monkey. And he didn’t just say it once; he said it five good times. As if to tell Mbappe — hey French boy, men mount. Wat r u gonna do abt it?

Vinicius himself only heard the statement once, and he immediately ran off to the referee like an excited boy in JS3 telling on his opps. The referee, who had just shown Vinicius a yellow for exactly the same reason Prestianni had allegedly called Vinicius a monkey, told Vinicius to go back and continue play. But that wasn’t the end of the case. At the end of the match, Mbappe said that Prestianni should not be allowed to play in UEFA competitions again for his insults. He says that little children watch the Champions League, and we shouldn’t expose them to that sort of bigotry.

Interestingly, I would think Prestianni agrees — since he covered his mouth while casting the spell that made Vinicius take even greater offense. Wait, sorry. He covered his mouth while saying the words. Yes, I know Prestianni is no magician — but some words are indeed magical! So magical that they may even force a football match to end as the victim of the spell may decide to walk off the pitch to avoid falling to its effects. At least that is what coach Arbeloa had to say. The decision to walk off the pitch was left up to Vini, he said.

In any case, Prestianni has done very well to demonstrate his burden of care to the little 11-year-olds at home who have never learnt a bad word. He made sure they never had to see him speak it by covering his mouth. But even that wasn’t enough for him, never mind that Mbappe himself has once been awarded a red card for shoving a player and looking for a fight. I am only being facetious — we all know that physically assaulting someone could never be as bad as a racist insult. A racist insult is much worse.

At the end of the matter, Prestianni, not to be outdone by his black brothers, and perhaps to show that the human race is indeed united in its display of all manner of interesting behaviors, tells investigators that he made a homophobic joke, not a racist one. You see, señor, I meant to imply that Vinicius lets people put their dicks in him, not to call him a monkey. I suppose in the end, there is only one race; the human race — and it is exceedingly stupid.

About a week later, the universe decided to make the same joke but with a different punchline. Two black American actors, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, climbed the stage of the BAFTAs to announce an award. Remember, they were not winning the award. They were announcing it.

While announcing it, some fellow in the audience with Tourette’s hurled the n-word at them. How horrible! How nasty! To their credit, Jordan and Delroy (Delroy, especially, as he had once dared a fellow TV presenter to say “the word” to his face) did not jump into the crowd and beat the fellow to an inch of his life. Even though some people might have excused that behavior, just like they excused Will Smith slapping the heck out of Chris Rock on live TV.

Before climbing the stage, and in fact before the event commenced, organizers had warned guests that John Davidson, a man with Tourette’s, would be in attendance. Davidson has a particular type of Tourette’s that affects the circuit of our brain that has to do with speech. First, the disorder makes you feel a sudden urge to say the most socially inappropriate thing you can. Then it stops the general brakes your mind has for stopping this sort of behavior. And then takes control of the circuit that controls your speech, which leads to what is called a tic. In other words, it is like sneezing. Someone with Tourette’s cannot stop their tics any easier than you can stop your sneezes.

In all honesty, the disorder itself is like a practical joke played by God. Tourette’s is like if you invented a disorder to solve the question; would black people still take offense at the n-word if it was uttered involuntarily by a disabled person who has had a very tough life? The disorder is too on the nose, and if one wrote it into a script in an alternate universe where Tourette’s didn’t exist, you would likely be reprimanded by your editor for “telling,” not “showing.”

Anyway, the fellow hurled the n-word, everyone shuffled anxiously, and that was all. The fellow had been hurling abusive words at guests all night, but he felt the n-word hurl was a bit much so he excused himself and left the evening early. And then the clip of the n-word hurl was posted on Instagram.

Jamie Foxx, known for being called the n-word in Oscar-winning movies, promptly appeared in the comments of the video to say that Davidson “meant that shit” and that “out of all the words… unacceptable.” Incredibly, this meant that Foxx knew — or had an idea — of what Tourette’s is, but thought that this fellow somehow chose his word for that moment. He somehow believes that John Davidson, who’d suffered his entire life with the disability, did it all so he could call two black actors the n-word on TV.

Thousands of others picked on Foxx’s word and the pile-on began. A tweet of 30k likes threatened to beat people with Tourette’s up. And another argued that poor Davidson should be muzzled, or taken to a “separate VIP” room where he can watch the show from without embarrassing the black guests. The actors who suffered this traumatic incident had very little to say, and Delroy only said he wished someone from the BAFTAs had spoken to them after the incident. This is despite the fact that they had been warned that Davidson was in the hall, and had been present for him hurling obscenities at other hosts on the stage.

People, many of them black Americans, couldn’t believe that Davidson would be so racist. Apparently, many thought the same as Foxx and believed his Tourette’s was really a ruse to call American blacks the no-no word. This is ironic, as he was primarily at the ceremony because a movie on his life had won an award. The movie covers scenes where Davidson is beaten within an inch of his life because he involuntarily called someone a bad word, and the nearly the same thing was happening at the premier of the film; he’d involuntarily said a bad word, and many people instantly took offence while insinuating that he did it intentionally.

A black judge at the BAFTAs resigned over this, and many influencers called for Davidson to grovel and beg for forgiveness from the black community. Many black people also expected him to apologize to the duo for the “harm caused.” And poor Davidson of course did. But that wasn’t enough.

The Magic Word

In just two weeks, we have seen both black millionaires and ordinary black people get extremely upset at racial insults. Mbappe got so mad at Prestianni that he tried to get him banned from Champions League football for life! And he wasn’t even the one the insult was directed at. Even if Prestianni thought Vinicius looked like a monkey, what business is that really of Mbappe? After all, players hurl even more personal insults at each other all the time. That is the nature of professional football. It is trash talking.

But insulting someone on the basis of their race? That isn’t trash talking. That is using a special spell that lets us know what you really think of black people. No one even bothered to ask Prestianni if he thought all black people looked like monkeys, or if it is just Vinicius. I don’t imagine the answer to his question would settle the matter, but I think it will be interesting to know.

Mbappe and Vinicius aren’t the only two black millionaires to lose their marbles over being called a bad word. Even Michael B. Jordan, I am now hearing, had an episode after the award show. Here is a passage from a newspaper article describing how Jordan felt hearing the magic spell on stage:

> ‘Michael had to do extensive research into the horrific psychological effects of racism to prepare for Sinners so was disgusted, repulsed and grossed out by John’s outburst,’ they told us.

> Ryan Coogler’s horror film Sinners is set in 1932 in the Mississippi Delta and stars Jordan in dual roles as criminal identical twin brothers who return to their hometown in the Jim Crow South, where they are confronted by a supernatural evil.

> ‘He read works by savants like Joy DeGruy Leary to prepare for the role, so the incident really reminded him about how much work has to be done to drive racism underground,’ the source continued.

> ‘He was having a difficult day already after finding out about an upsetting incident in the Atlanta area recently, so this just made it worse. But, he is having a great year and won’t let this stop him. He’s focused on his new movie The Thomas Crown Affair.’

> However, after watching the event unfold, the actor’s parents were left shaken.

> ‘His mum and dad broke down in tears when they saw what happened to him and Delroy, and it has been a horrible 48 hours for the family,’ they explained.

Look at how his publicist describes his state of mind. He wasn’t just repulsed, he was also grossed out, and all of this was after being disgusted. To substantiate this point, we learn that Jordan had to do research for his movie (where he yells out the magic word nineteen times, and the word is yelled back at him multiple times as well), and as such he knows about the horrible psychological effects the magic word can cause.

Is it this horrible psychological effect he is now feeling? Who can say. To make things worse, even Jordan’s parents have fallen under the spell of the magic word. They broke down in tears, and it has been a horrible 48 hours for the family. The word was uttered in one second, and yet we can feel the effects for the next 48 hours.

All by the mention of one single word. One word, and Michael B. Jordan and his family felt all of this, and more. One word to rule them all.

But why? Why would this word have so much power? Is this n-word a magic spell, or is there something else happening here? Let us find out.

The Magic of The Magic Word

People who seriously believe that the n-word is a magic word with magic properties (this is what we have to believe to try to take their position seriously) have several interesting arguments for the elevated status of the word. For one, people won’t say it aloud, even when joking. Even now, I am not writing the word since Gmail will likely blacklist the heavens out of this email if too many n-bombs are found in it.

Secondly, the potency of the word isn’t really in what it means, but in who says it. A rap song, for instance, can have almost a hundred mentions of the word, and yet no one has had to recover — or feel grossed out about it. But that is only if it is sang by a black artist. A white artist wouldn’t be given such grace.

So what makes the n-word bad isn’t intent or any actual effect of the word, but the identity of the speaker. In fact, even Davidson realized it as that is the only reason the word was obscene to him in the first place. A black person suffering from the same ailment likely wouldn’t scream the n-word at both actors. And if he did, Michael B. Jordan couldn’t possibly have a problem with it. What are you going to do? Tell a black man he is racist for using the n-word? In any case, this means that one way we can get non-black people with Tourette’s to interact with black people without offending them is by putting them in blackface.

You wouldn’t believe it (but I would), but Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx aren’t the only black people to feel the n-word has some magic properties when uttered by non-whites. It is in fact a popular absurdism that many non-white people just ignore for the sake of racial peace. And black people even have a well-constructed castle (in the air) of logic that defends the magic properties of the magic word. If you are black and well-versed in leftist speak, you will know of this incredible logic.

You see, the n-word is literally Schrödinger’s word. It is both a racial slur and a wholesome term of endearment (thanks, my n-word) depending on who is speaking it. It is okay for blacks to use this term because they are merely reclaiming it — even if they used it in a prejudicial manner (dumb ass n-word). However, it is bad for any non-white to use it in any way (you may not be allowed to read it out loud in a book, or sing it in a song) since their grandfathers invented the word and used it to oppress black people for a little under a century. The n-word isn’t just a word that harms like other insulting words — it is one that carries with it the psychological anguish of slavery and the Jim Crow era. Now, even if we agreed with this premise, it is still an extraordinary way to view one word, and I can only think of the name of Jesus as a word with similar psychological weight.

This is the best steelman I can come up with for people who have this totally irrational reaction to a word. It is the best I can come up with, and yet it is transparently insufficient. And yet, it is all we have to deal with.

Here is how Essence, a black media org with almost a million followers on Twitter, described the weight of the word:

> Yes, Tourette syndrome is real. We hold space for that. Coprolalia is real. We hold space for that. But so is history. So is the humiliation of having that word attached to your name in a viral clip that will live online forever. To Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, here is an apology you are owed; We are sorry that during a historical awards season of the most nominated film in Oscar History that you have to endure this.

When you hear black people talk about the “harm” caused by Jordan hearing this word at an event, I want you to ask them to be more specific. What was the exact harm caused here? Did the word give him flashbacks of his ancestors being lynched? And if so, did it also give him a flashback of his white ancestors tormenting other black people (black Americans are 25% white)? Can he describe, exactly, what he felt in that hall that he didn’t feel when the same word was hurled at him by white vampires in Sinners? Or did he actually feel the same and Coogler had to hire a therapist to calm him in between shots?

Or maybe, and this is the more reasonable (yet still unreasonable) position, he fears that getting called the n-word at the show would be the butterfly wing that flaps and leads to Jim Crow 2: The Gen Z Remix? And if so, are we allowed to sit Jordan down and tell him how completely unreasonable he is being? Are we supposed to agree that his “fears” are justified? Or is there a third type of harm that Jordan is feeling here that is supposed to be out of reach for non-blacks?

There is this strange assumption here that because a word historically functioned as a tool of systemic oppression, every individual instance of its use—even a neurological “sneeze” from a man with Tourette’s—must inherently carry the full weight of that system. By collapsing the distinction between a cross-burning and a literal brain malfunction, the “harm” becomes untethered from reality. The supposed victim even more so. It treats the individual not as a person with agency or a disability, but as a mere vessel for a historical ghost. When Michael B. Jordan reacts with “disgust” to Davidson’s tic, he isn’t reacting to the man in the room; he is reacting to a phantom, he is being scared by a ghost. I refuse to believe getting scared by a ghost is a traumatic incident requiring…. all of this.

In his statement, we are told that the outburst reminds Jordan of “how much work” needs to be done to “drive racism underground.” So even Jordan here either believes that Davidson is actually a racist using his Tourette’s as an excuse to use a slur, or that the mere uttering of the n-word increases the amount of racism particles in the air.

But if the word can cause that much damage, why does Jordan earn so much money from acting in movies where he says it and is called it? Wouldn’t the coherent thing be to oppose the saying of the word at every time by everyone? Interestingly, this word is so taboo amongst a majority of non-black Americans that it would have dropped out of the English language entirely if not for its copious use in black media.

It is all so tiresome.

Black Fragility

The title of this substack is Black Fragility, however, it may be correct to call it Black Narcissism. The idea that a man would fake this debilitating disease — one that is often so bad that a fourth of people suffering it usually kill themselves — just so that he could get to say the magic black word is extraordinarily conceited. Do you know how high an opinion you have to have of yourself and your race to believe that is true? To believe the entire world would gang up in this conspiracy called Tourette’s only to humiliate two black men? It is extremely narcissistic, yet it seems to be what many black people believe.

What makes it even worse is that the supposed harm here is fake. It isn’t real. It never happened — even by the playbook of leftist academics who argue that racism is actually really prejudice plus power. Michael B. Jordan and Delroy what’s-his-name are exceedingly more powerful than a 50-something-year-old janitor with a horrible disorder. These two black men were invited from their country to one that is 85% white to present a prestigious award to a best-in-class practitioner. They were shown extraordinary respect, just like any other white performer, and felt at home amongst their own class. It is the sort of thing you would expect in a post-racial Eldorado. They have more privilege than him here. Yet, with just the mention of one word involuntarily, he’s oppressed them. Down is up, and up is down. With just one word, we are expected to believe that this man has assumed power over two extremely famous black millionaires. In the same vein, with just one word, 19-year-old Prestianni playing for Benfica has oppressed World Cup and Champions League winning duo Vinicius and Mbappe. How fragile is that?

What if Prestianni really thinks Vinicius looks like a monkey? What if he thinks all black people look like monkeys? I think he looks like a drug dealer about to catch a bunch of bullets. What about it? How is it supposed to be any more painful than other other type insult targeting literally any other aspect of his life? If Vinicus subjectively thinks it is, why is that Prestianni’s headache?

I have faint memories of when I would be pushed to fight when someone insulted my parents when I was a young boy. As a young Nigerian child, someone insulting your mom is the American equivalent of a white boy calling you the magic word. Or at least that is how it felt. If someone insulted your mom, or called you a bastard, you were honor-bound to crash out like a chimp and go bananas. It was primary school honor culture, and I promptly left it behind when I entered a public school and saw many boys three times my size. It is extraordinary that this culture, that I now look upon as stupid and ridiculous and a relic of the fragile mind of a child, is the same that many blacks have spent a lot of hours defending. How fragile is that?

It is true that black Africans like myself may not have encountered racism, and as such do not “get the context” here, but I want you to read this twice: that is completely foolish nonsense. Black Americans are, by far, the most privileged blacks on the planet. The difference in privilege is both one of degree, and one of type. If racism delivers the quality of life black Americans enjoy, I am not sorry for ignoring its “impact.” As far as I can see, its impact is completely irrelevant. In fact, a cynical alien mind may argue that black Africans need more racism, not less. Or as much racism as has lifted black Americans to the heights of prosperity and global prominence they now enjoy by virtue of being American.

More to the point, if non-blacks cannot call blacks the bad word because of history, what about black Africans? After all, most slaves were bought from black Africans who enslaved them first. For all I know, my ancestor might have directly sold Jordan’s ancestor. Are black Africans allowed to use the bad word? Does Michael B. Jordan have an internal clock in his head that detects when the magic word comes from a black African instead of a black American? What if I were mixed? Does he only feel half the oppression? It is all so ridiculous.

I don’t want anyone to make the big mistake of assuming that there is some fault to be shared here. I have read many people saying that the BAFTAs should apologize (they have) to both actors. But why should they? They warned everyone about Davidson being in the audience. Two grown men cannot handle the involuntary hurling of a swear word? A swear word they listen to almost every day from black media? The BAFTAs should apologize for that? Is this some sort of clown world?

Others have said that they should have edited the clip out. I simply refuse to believe black people don’t have the mental resilience to handle being called a bad word by someone who didn’t mean to and is embarrassed to. I refuse to believe that is a duty of care owed to black people. No, it is a duty of care owed to children. Black people are not children. You can believe they are, but I won’t join you in that delusion.

In fact, the only sensible outcome of this situation would be for Delroy and Jordan to understand the context of the slur, pretend it was spoken by a million-dollar white actor paid to call them that in front of a camera, and move on with their lives — as they have done many times before, and as other guests who heard Davidson’s outburst that evening did. But they just couldn’t do that, and had to embarrass themselves (because this is indeed quite embarrassing) by exporting niche racial grievances to the global stage. And of course, other black people backed them up in a misguided sense of racial solidarity. It is all so tiresome.

So, to recap the new rules of engagement in our post-racial, pre-outrage society: a multimillionaire athlete can simulate a sex act on national television, but the real scandal is the insulting syllable whispered behind a hand. A man with a debilitating brain disorder that compels him to shout obscenities is expected to apologize for the content of his outburst, rather than the fact that he has to live with a condition that makes him a pariah. And the ultimate offense, the sin that cannot be named, is simultaneously so powerful it can reduce grown men and their families to tears for 48 hours, yet so weak that it is neutered completely if rapped over a beat or spoken by a black actor in a Jim Crow-era film. The logic is impeccable: the word is a ghost that haunts only when it benefits us to be haunted, a chain that binds only when we wish to feel shackled. It is a magic trick performed by a community that has convinced itself it is the audience, when in reality, it is both the magician and the volunteer tied up on stage. And the rest of us are just left to applaud the performance, lest we be accused of not believing in the magic. The worst thing about it, of course, is that it is a uniquely black problem. I suppose the black identity activists are correct; only black people have to deal with this.