Yesterday, NYC city council banned the use of the word nigger. The legislation is symbolic given that it would be virtually impossible to enforce such a law. While, I think it’s touching that the council banned the word, I do think the ban infringes upon our right to free speech and I’m not really sure that it will be effective.

The ban may inspire some conversation about whether or not we should be using such a historically painful word, but I think the demographic targeted for the legislation is off point.

Yes, people of African descent should not use the word as a benevolent term meaning friend or comrade; it’s indicative of lingering self-hatred from the days of slavery (or colonization).

But the real context within which the word should be banned is when the word nigger is used to mean what it has always meant: a racial pejorative used against black people that is indicative of the deep-seeded racial hatred held by the user. Like when Michael Richards used it on stage or that time I was called a nigger by a white cabdriver in NYC. While, punishing people for using the word nigger or it’s derivative nigga would be impossible, I would have loved to used the law for my benefit when that cabdriver hurled it at me for cutting him off. He actually got out of his car at a stop light and pounding on my window and called me a “stupid nigger”.

My fantasy is that I could have made a citizens arrest and then tortured him for hours upon hours, tied up in my apartment, by recounting every act of racial hatred and discrimination that I have ever endured and every act of racial hatred and discrimination that I know of that black people have historically endured and then I would have conjured up my inner-Naomi Campbell and slapped the shit out of him and then I would present him with a ticket for his bit of racist hate-speech. The ticket would be a “reparations” ticket that would levy of fine of some huge sum and the deed to his house in Queens. That’s my fantasy.

Anyway, I will be on a BBC program (programme) today called Have Your Say to talk about the NYC city council banning nigger.

The show begins at 1:30 NYC time (6:30 London time). Here’s how to listen if you want to: Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ and then click on the box on the left-hand side of the screen that says BBC World Service.