Lenny Bruce, Roma(nian) Gypsies, & the "N"-word, Part 2

Political Incorrectness on the American Campus

May 09, 2025

Ok, Part 2 coming up.

However, I do want to acknowledge that this seems to be quite the dodgy and delicate subject.

Although I have only gotten positive comments on Part 1, I did get one direct email from a friend who was greatly offended by my re-publishing the post from 2010. And even one of my “Founding Annual Subscribers” also mentioned that she was “uncomfortable” with my use of “the N word”, even though she realized that I had been told very specifically by one of my Roma/Gypsy Romanian students that

The Roma people (Gypsies) are the niggers of Europe.

There! I’ve already done it again?

But since there will be more of the same in Part 2 below, I just wanted to give my Readers a heads up.

I understand that some people are just offended when I, clearly a white man, use the word - under any circumstances. That some people, either black or white, are hurt by the terrible history of the word. But I am not naive, uneducated, or inexperienced. As a boy, I was often accosted with verbal and physical anti-Semitic assaults all through elementary school, even though I didn’t first understand why. But I do know firsthand about prejudice based on skin color, religion, politics, geography, and just about anything/everything else.

Also, “in my defense”, my first post-college roommate in Chicago, where I first grew up and became an artist, was William McKinney, who was black and raised on the poor Southside of the city, not far from the residential haunts of Michelle Obama. He and I were life-long friends, and he was practically adopted by my mother and father in a psychic, spiritual, and real-world way. And indeed, I married a brown-skinned woman from Third World Indonesia, and adopted a brown-skinned boy from the same island of Sumatra.

This does not give me license or permission to use “the word”, and although I choose to, I certainly have no intention of offending my friends or readers. Because I do honestly believe that this is an interesting and hyper-sensitive subject, open to a variety of interpretations. It’s not about banning books, suppressing the vote, firing federal employees, or deporting immigrants without do process and just cause, but having worked in academia at USC in Los Angeles for 31 years, I have been both a warrior and a defender on the subject for a very long time. I have seen academia change over the decades, introducing such terms as political correctness, affirmative action, DEI, and a host of other very hot and controversial potatoes over the years. It has not been pleasant.

Nor do I think that I am a modern-day Lenny Bruce. There was only one of him, and he opened the doors to considering what was profane and what wasn’t a lonnnng time before I hit the scene. He had his ass put in jail, had his career threatened and attacked, and he paid a far greater price than having a comment made to him because of a Substack post. Three cheers for Lenny!!!

And then, not quite my bottom line, but I’m just sayin’, listen to Nobel Literary Laureate, Bob Dylan’s, classic iconoclastic song, “Hurricane”,

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched, he was a revolutionary bum
And for the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed

And so… with all this said, should you have a thick skin and still enjoy “hearing my voice” on the subject, do read on…,.,…

september 27, 2010 (part 2, again posted in its original lower case)

“two days later, i get another e-mail. not from brenda, but from the executive director of the university’s “committee on un-american activities”. actually, from her secretary:

dear dr. trules. ms. jones would like you to come into her office for a brief meeting with her at your soonest convenience. she is available at the following times.

oh, mother fucking hell. what did you do now, brenda? you “like and respect me enough” that you had to make a formal complaint about me in front of the university’s “un-american activities committee”? grrreeeat.

i go into the meeting with ms. jones, who… is probably just doing her due diligence in responding to a complaint. she doesn’t want my head. she doesn’t want my job. does she? 25 years down the drain for using the fucking “N word”… as a metaphor! when it was told to me verbatim - in romania?

hello, ms jones.
hello, dr. trules. thank you for coming in.
you’re welcome, ms. jones. it’s just “professor’ trules. no ‘doctor”. although… i often do feel that my job is sort of connected to probing and healing… the human psyche, you know?
yes, dr. trules. but would you like to tell me about what happened the other day?
you mean at the back to school student orientation?
yes, i presume so.

ok. now what do i do? do i take the course of least resistance and try to cover my ass? save my job? just say how terribly sorry i am for any offense that my use of “the N word” caused in the room that day. that i was insensitive. politically incorrect. inappropriate for our esteemed institution of higher learning. basically, eat crow and move on to a better day.

yes, of course, that’s what i should do. that’s what i’ll say.

———————————–

well, you see, ms jones, i was using a metaphor for the disempowerment of the gypsy people of romania. a metaphor for the dispossession of the entire roma people. i was actually standing up for the underdog people of the world when i said that “the gypsies were the niggers of europe”. just the way john lennon and yoko ono said that “women were the niggers of the world”. just the way lenny bruce used the words, ‘nigger. niggger. nigger. fuck fuck fuck. nigger nigger nigger. fuck fuck fuck.’ they’re just words, ms jones. understand? nigger, nigger. fuck, fuck, cunt, pussy! just words! but we load them like guns. and we shoot them off at each other. and some of us can use them. and others of us can’t. how are we supposed to know, ms jones? who’s to say who can say which words to whom? i didn’t call anyone a ‘nigger’. i don’t hate black people. i didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, ms jones. if i did, i’m sorry. i already apologized to everyone i could think of. why won’t fucking damn brenda get the fuck off my case, ms jones?

ms. jones is staring at me. her jaw has dropped to her knees.

who is this ‘brenda’, dr. trules?
uh.. what do you mean, ms. jones? she’s the one who filed the complaint…. isn’t she?
no, i’m afraid she’s not, dr. trules.
it’s just ‘professor’, ms. jones. uh… who filed what complaint?
it was someone in your solo performance class who didn’t like the way you spoke to an asian girl who didn’t understand english very well. she said you raised your voice and made the girl uncomfortable. do you remember the incident, dr. trules?

fuck. this has nothing to do with brenda and my using the “N” word! i just dug myself a giant grave.

who did i make uncomfortable, ms. jones? the asian girl or the complainee?
look, dr. trules. i looked you up on the ‘rate my professors’ website. and what i found is: ‘best professor ever’. and… ‘he’s an ass’.
well they go together, ms. jones. i’m demanding. i set the bar high so the students will rise. i believe in the 1^st amendment, lenny bruce, and challenging authority.
i can see all that, dr. trules. i’d just like to encourage more of the ‘best professor ever’ and less of the ‘he’s an ass’. understand, dr. trules?
yes, i do, ms. jones.
and one more thing, dr. trules. you seem like a very smart, intelligent, sensitive man. i’d prefer to meet you under different circumstances the next time we run into one another, if you catch my drift.”
yes, i do, ms. jones. thank you for your graciousness and understanding.
have a nice day, dr. trules. i mean, professor trules.
you too, ms. jones.