Decade-plus of Blaxpoitation cinema: Author of book exploring it on how use of n-word changed

Author, JC native Odie Henderson talks changing Black use of the term

Left, a crop of a photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash that shows a microphone with pop filter. Right, the cover of "Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxpoitation Cinema" by Odie Henderson from Harry N. Abrams Press.

In the English language, few words can seem to have more weight than the n-word. And for this Chilltownblues.com piece, let’s make clear this is not green light to use any form of the word if you’re not Black – which itself is not the monolith the racial designation frequently conjures up in mainstream media and pop culture.

But if there’s one word historically used in the U.S. to try to chop people down to some small, subservient size, if there’s one word portending to mean someone worthy of second-class treatment, second-class neighborhoods, a second-class life, it’s the n-word, so as (pre-MAGA anyway) the slightly quieter form of the system that depended on rationalizing people as the n-word continues to chug on, doesn’t reclamation make sense on some level? Then there’s the argument that it’s easy for any variation of the word to play into the very power structure that created its original form.

But that power structure is one that limits everyone on the board. No one is emptier and more devoid of self-worth than someone who throws that word out like it’s their ace of value in a society in which they otherwise rage at their own perceived lacking-ness.

See? Heavy.

In his book, “Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation Cinema” – which has an Audible version released just a few weeks ago –  Jersey City native Odie Henderson explores how the Blaxpoitation-film era, despite its flaws, helped broaden his childhood notions of what Blackness could be on screen; movies like “Shaft” made the rigid tunnel of Blackness as portrayed in Hollywood and TV (with a few notable exceptions we’ll get to later) bigger – beyond support players in the background or seemingly ever-noble characters portrayed by Sidney Poitier.