That’s the one thing I hate about the niggers…” says Jack Nicholson as character Frank Costello in the opening scene of Martin Scorsese’s new movie The Departed. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I will be very soon. From what I hear it is a great crime movie and is receiving rave reviews from all over. Yesterday morning a good friend of mine Hans asked me a very good question that involved those very same words quoted from Jack Nicholson. Hans asked me, if I went to go see a movie directed by my favorite director and it used the word nigger in it because it was about down south, would I be offended or not? He asked me this question because it can very well be said that if it were about down south the word nigger would be used because it is being real to the places environment.
I have to say that hearing the word nigger in the first scene of a movie would definitely catch me off guard because it is a natural reaction not only as a person, but also as a black man because of the words history. But, thinking without the emotion the movie without the word probably wouldn’t be as realistic because it had to deal with the Irish mob and was based in Boston. Yes I know the Irish in Boston were racist or used the word nigger often, not all but some did. Shaquille O’neal has even complained about the words use in the movie and was heard saying that he was upset at the director Martin Scorsese. From what I hear it was only used twice in a 2 and half hour movie.
I understand Shaqs concern and yes even if the movie was trying to be as real as possible it still hurts hearing that word being used. I try no to be sensitive towards things of that nature because as African Americans a lot of other Americans view us as overly sensitive and emotionally fragile. Sometimes we have to think about who suffered because of that word and how many of our ancestors died for that word, but we also have to think the movie wasn’t trying to disrespect anyone, but be real as possible. Let’s be real people we have used that word in movies before and continue to use it in our hip hop records.
I am for one tired of the words use and tired of people justifying its use. It is very sad to this day you can hear kids of other races use it with others and try to justify using it also and don’t see anything wrong with it. Here is my question to everyone, should the word have been used in those two scenes in the movie or just not?
