For the longest time, I told myself that I would write about John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s “Woman Is the N-Word of the World” but I did not want to die from the cringe. But at this moment, I am close to making my teenage angst chocolate chip pancakes and downing them with like 4 glasses of milk which will surely destroy my stomach, so why not? Side note: writing this qualifies as self-harm because this makes me hate everything, lol. Anyways, let's jump straight into the song itself.
In 1969 Yoko Ono coined the term “Woman Is the N-Word of the World” during an interview with Nova Magazine, and she is quoted on their cover.
In 1972 Lennon and Yoko released the song “Woman is the N-Word of the World” as the opening of their studio album “Sometime in New York City.” Popular to what many Yoko Ono and John Lennon stans spew on the internet, this song received a lot of backlash due to how offensive and inappropriate the song was and many radio stations refused to play the song. It was even Lennon’s worst charting US single. To combat all the criticism Apple Records (The Beatles’ record label) funded ads in the 6 May issue of Billboard magazine featuring black congressman Ron Dellums explaining the n-word. (And I’d just like to add that this was a gross usage of one black man’s words just to make Lennon look better and shield him from criticism other black people have). Also on the Dick Chavvet show, Lennon himself tried to mention Ron Dellums to save himself. During the interview, he says “All my black friends feel I have the right to say it (the n-word)” and proceeds to quote Ron Dellums. Lennon ends his speech off with “And I didn’t say that!” and “I think the word n-word has changed and it does not have the same meaning as it used to.”
Check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYjEz441I4M
Now that we have covered the history of this song and Lennon’s justification for its existence, I will explain why he is wrong. Many white John Lennon and Yoko Ono assume that the only thing problematic with this song is the usage of the n-word. If you take a look at any comment section on a YouTube video of the song it’s just filled with them calling others sensitive and ignoring the historical damage the n-word has inflicted on my people.
And the response from white Beatles fans on Reddit was pretty much the same:
Lennon repeating the n-word about 5 times is arguably the least problematic aspect of the song. As Lennon and his fellow YouTube and Reddit bigots have failed to understand intersectionality, which makes a lot of sense seeing how proud they are of themselves. Calling women “the n-words of the word” fails to acknowledge that black women and other women of color exist. This term implies that there are only black men and white women in the world. And this is perfectly reflected in white feminism, which has historically ignored women of color. White suffragists Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were supported by the white man George Francis Train whose slogan was “Woman first, Negros last.” Stanton herself is quoted saying “We educated, virtuous white women, are more worthy of the vote.” And “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.” This shows us that for these white feminists liberating all women was not their goal. Their goal is to become the white man, the top oppressor, the slave master. When white men like Lennon spew this same rhetoric, whether intentional or not, all I can see is the slave master and his white wife laughing together as they force their black slaves to cook, clean, and raise their kids for them. So no, “Woman Is the N-Word of the World” does not empower me at all. To put it as nicely as possible, the song was made by two “woke” idiots that had no idea what they were talking about. Also John, you trying to pull the black card just made you look worse. Non-black people only do things like that when they know they will get backlash from the black community and it makes it so obvious that you only know one black person that is truly a friend and not an acquaintance. And you and Apple Records quoting that one black man to justify what y’all did just proves that you know your intentions are wrong. One man does not represent the whole of us and you know damn well. You would not use Ron Dellums like that if you weren’t trying to hide from valid criticism. Now moving onto the John Lennon stans because I have a serious bone to pick with y’all. Lennon and Ono were activists, which means that any activism they do is open to critique, especially by the very people that they claim to care for. You cannot treat him like a god and shut down minorities with complaints just because John is dead. And if you do that just proves that you don’t care about what John should’ve stood for; all you care about is how pretty his achievements look when written down on paper. Welp, I think I’m done for today and I expect compensation for the emotional distress this put me through.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137681070/for-stanton-all-women-were-not-created-equal
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/suffrage-movement-racism-black-women.html
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/melinda-henneberger/article245084250.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Is_the_Nigger_of_the_World
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