Greetings! My name is Mary Phillips, and I have an opinion about Rose Afriyie’s opinion piece… Greetings! My name is Mary Phillips, and I have an opinion about Rose Afriyie’s opinion piece in Tuesday’s Pitt News concerning the “n-word.”

The n-word hardly comes into my sphere of existence at all, and that is not the part of Afriyie’s column that I want to discuss. I agree that the n-word has no place on the tongue of a white person. See, I’m a silly white girl. Martin Luther King Jr.’s message means something different to me because I do not have a part in the black experience.

To me, King wasn’t just talking about equality and integration of a certain race – though it certainly was a focal point – but the creation of a human solidarity that extends beyond racial confines, the kind of unity that is illuminated in the celebration of any difference at all. That diversity should become an expression of this unity. To quote G. Love, however, “in that diversity, let there be no sense of separation.” Afriyie’s column seemed to me not only to illustrate that separation, but to urge us to enforce it. Phrases like “cultural robbery,” and “white people usurping black culture,” sound like an inverse throwback.

To me, King wanted these lines between races to dissolve. This does not imply the dissolution of racial pride, but instead implies that all of us strive to create a culture that lies outside of something as simple as the color of our skin.

To keep the rich art and history of black culture in America confined solely to that culture and away from those who cannot help but be influenced by it is tantamount to the prevention of change and progress. I think the basis of racism is fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, and if, as Afriyie is advocating, black culture keeps what it’s created to itself, that culture will stay unknown, unfamiliar, feared and therefore dangerously misunderstood. It seems selfish to want to keep beautiful music to oneself, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we share what grace grows from the earth we’re planted in?

There are so many ways of hating people, as has been proved many times over in humanity’s history. But the path to love is understanding and respect. I understand Afriyie’s opinion, and I respect it, but I disagree.

Cheers,

Mary Phillips