A NEW DREAM

There is a video circulating around the internet that deserves attention for more than one reason.  It involves a little boy, who is more a man child in a ten year old frame, who challenges the nation to eliminate the ‘n’ word from the American vocabulary, and he has come up with a unique way to do it. His name is Jonathan McCoy, and in the video he appears in front of his church, the 1500-member Empowerment Temple mega-church in Baltimore, and challenges the audience to end the use of the word by describing its origins and then going on to point out in a commanding voice why it should be insulting to all people of color. 

“I'm sending a message to everyone who knowingly or ignorantly uses this word to describe our people, whether you're a gangster rapper who uses it to communicate with your boys, or someone who looks down on us who haven't got a college education,"  he states. “It is implausible that 40 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that we still use this word that holds no worth in our lives nor our future,” he continues. 

He then goes onto say that he is petitioning the country to end the word by adding a new stanza to James Weldon Johnson’s Lift Every Voice and Sing, better known as the Negro National Anthem.  “It’s now 2009 leave the ‘n’ word behind,” he sings. At the end he proclaims my name is Jonathan McCoy and I approve this message and the crowd erupts in applause.  When I logged on there were more than one million hits on the website, and the numbers continue to grow.

Since delivering his speech Jonathan has been on a tear. Most recently he was interviewed on October 23rd, on the CBS Evening news by national correspondent Byron Pitts. Websites showing the speech and sponsoring the petition, so far, have more than a million hits. But it is not enough. Despite the more than one million voices who agree with Jonathan, there will be dissenters and what remains to be seen is how much of a megaphone they will be given.  There are also those who, under the radar, fight dearly to keep the ‘n’ word alive for other, more sinister reasons.  There is an entire website devoted to ‘n’ word jokes run by a white supremacist group.  The website sports a hangman’s noose and proclaims that while it is not legal now, one day it might, a not so subtle message.

As I write this I can already hear the chorus of those who say that it’s a generational argument. That the older generation doesn’t understand the way the younger generation uses the ‘n’ word. The problem is, Jonathan McCoy is the younger generation and to listen to his argument is to listen to the eloquence of youth. McCoy is an excellent student who maintains a high GPA, and does well in other areas.  Yet, he stands to be drowned out by those who can barely speak the English language.  At issue, who will win? There are also those who say the use of the word is innocent and should fall on deaf ears.  They said the same thing decades ago about blackface and Amos and Andy.

Jonathan McCoy deserves to be heard.  His petition deserves attention.  What would be wrong with adding a stanza to an old African American standby that would breath new life into our anthem?  Would it hurt?  I think not.  Obviously there are one million others who agree.  Make that one million and at least one.

Del Walters is an author and documentary producer who writes about politics and culture for EbonyJet.com.