Is Madonna a White Racist?

Please excuse the title that I absentmindedly chose for this post.  Popular opinion has it that only Caucasians can be racist, so to include the word “white” with racist is redundant.  I guess I’ll never learn politically correct double-speak.  That said, let us turn our attention to the inimitable Madonna.  

On January 18, 2014 the Associated Press published a piece entitled "Madonna apologizes for racial slur," claiming that the singer had posted an Instagram of her son Rocco in a boxing stance and used a hashtag that included a "variation" of the word "nigger."

So, is Madonna a white racist?  Let's consider just a couple well-documented facts.  First, in addition to her two natural white children, Madonna adopted and mothers in her home two black African kids, David Banda and Mercy James.  Second, Madonna has dated black men and regularly employs and performs amicably with blacks of both genders.  Finally, the word nigger is ubiquitous among the singer's professional intimates being used by them as noun, adjective, adverb, or predicate in everyday conversation. 

The indictment of Madonna is anti-white racial exploitation as usual.  [Even Bill Clinton, who always had been the only true white political darling of African Americans, was accused of racism when his wife, Hillary, ran against Barack Obama during the 2008 Democrat Primary.] In America, nigger is not so much a word as it is an implement used by unscrupulous individuals and groups for personal gain.  Sometimes the implement is employed to make a few bucks, such as when nigger is mentioned in films or music.  The grio.com, a black website, suggests that nigger appears "in approximately 89,000 popular rap songs.” ( http://thegrio.com/2014/01/20/madonna-offers-non-apology-for-use-of-the-n-word/ )

Grio.com also underscores the second feature of nigger as an implement  and what I believe is the primary reason for its continuing popularity: "nigger' is a weapon that some blacks employ whenever it is to their advantage. Merely by accusing whites of saying it, the accused white is put on the defensive and forced to "prove" that he/she did not utter the accursed word.  At that point all non-race-oriented discussion ends with the white being unable to pursue his/her own agenda.  Racial manipulators just love to "put white folks in their place," by indicating what "black folks" will and will not allow whites to say, all the while insisting that blacks can say the very same verboten things. Thus, the Grio writer, previously referenced who commented about the frequency of the so-called n-word in rap songs, goes on to lecture Madonna and all Caucasians as follows:  

Madonna’s non-apology for her n-word Instagram caption is yet another example of how the word has become overly complicated throughout the years. There is a very simple rule that will make life easier for everyone. If you are not black, do not ever use the word the n-word or any variation of it. Period.

I can provide advice too.  During my youth, racial and ethnic slurs were as common as dandelions.  For instance, In addition to calling blacks niggers, Hispanics were called spics, Chinese were chinks, Polish were pollocks, Italians were dagoes, and Irish were "pig shit Irish."  Virtually every group regularly maligned the others. That practice was divisive and disgraceful.  Fortunately, members of ethnic groups vociferously spoke against the slurs and never used them to refer to each other.  There were no songs using the slurs and no one profited by exploiting the slurs.  Aided and abetted by widespread use within the African American community and by racially-oriented profiteering, "nigger" remains the only truly popular slur.  I guess we know why.