Chris Rock did it better.

For those interested in sociology or linguistics or Comedy Central, this article about Carlos “least funny comedian ever” Mencia is interesting. It’s about “melioration,” the process in which a word with offensive connotations is reclaimed and renovated. The example in the article is “queer,” which used to be a slur until the gay community took charge and made it their own. For Mencia, the word is “beaner,” although I think it’s a mistake to characterize any of his words or behavior as motivated by anything more complicated than a misguided impression that mere offensiveness is hilarious. At any rate, the Washington Post seems to be pushing this one, giving mere lip-service to the viewpoint that the word is still offensive..

There is one point made in the article that hit home for me, though:

Gustavo Arellano, a writer for the Orange County Weekly, an alternative newspaper, does a column called “¡Ask a Mexican!” He’s heard the term all his life, but says, ” ‘Beaner’ is now nearly an inoffensive term among many Mexicans.” He says it sounds funny, outdated, retro — “like calling an Italian a pizza-eater.”

For an Anglo to use it as a pejorative, “it just means they’re not up on their racial slurs.”

And no Anglo wants to be an anachronistic racist.

Anyway, to make things clear: I think Mencia is dumb and unfunny, and that’s why I don’t like him. His use of ethnic slurs, whether a conscious attempt to diffuse their negative power or a clueless perpetuation of hurtful language, doesn’t bother me. I think anyone should be able to say anything they want, but I’d be pretty concerned if Carlos Mencia were the spokesman for any cause I believed in.

For some evidence on Carlos’s less-than-perfect grasp of what he’s dealing with here, check out the last graf of the article:

Mencia says on TV he wouldn’t use the raw slang for black because he isn’t. “I know that word goes through a filter of hatred.” As for “beaner,” he is one, so he can use it, he says. What if his popularization of the word gets picked up by non-Latinos for casual use? “If someone called me a beaner, like a skinhead? I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing,” he says. “Words are not the problem. Intent is the problem.”

So, which is it? Is it the words (he knows “that word goes through a filter of hatred”) or is it intent? Hint: if you want to talk about why people get offended, it’s about the word’s perception, not the intent of the speaker or the inherent power of the word. If you’re trying to piss people off or offend them, use a word that you know will do that. If you’re trying to hammer a word into people’s skulls so often that it loses its offensive power, then do that. But if you think that “I am not offended by this word, so neither should you be” is an effective argument, then I guess you’re as smart as you are funny.