Whoopi Goldberg is wrong, and out of touch with her roots. The use of the n-word, which she wielded repeatedly on The View in her rebuke of Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s contrary viewpoint, does not empower blacks, as Whoppi insists, it enslaves them.

Whoopi’s invocation to blacks to proudly utter the n-word serves only to resurrect and enshrine outdated 18^th century cultural values and language that African slaves were forced to inherit from the largely poor and uneducated population of Scot-Irish immigrants who imported them to develop the South.

In essence, the original primitive tribal cultural and language roots of the enslaved African men, women and children, were brutally severed by the betrayal of their own leaders, and then grafted to the stock of a newly planted, Southern tree whose own meager European roots were generally of a coarse, quarrelsome and ill-mannered nature.

As Arthur Herman notes in his New York Times bestseller, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, the Ulster Scots, who did the lion's share of settling the South in the early 1700’s , “were quick-tempered , inclined to hard work followed by bouts of boisterous leisure and heavy drinking, and easy to provoke into fighting.” Wow, me thinks Whoopi must play the bagpipes after seeing how she lit into Hasselbeck for daring to wonder out loud how one is supposed to explain to young children the tortured logic of it being okay for some people to use the n-word, but not for others.

The Ulster Scots of the early South also loved to use the crude language of their poor Irish and Scot background. According to Herman, children were referred to as “little shits” and local streams were named “Tickle C..t Branch” and “F......g Creek.” Given Whoopi’s n-word doctrine, I suppose she yearns for a movement to similarly rename some of the parks and playgrounds, streets and monuments that honor positive black contributions to our country.

Another term the old South inherited from it’s European roots was cracker, from the Scots word craik for “talk,” meaning a loud talker or braggart. Herman tells us that the words “cracker” and “redneck” (derogatory for Scot Presbyterians) “became permanent parts of the identity of the Deep South the Ulster Scots created.”

Looks like the obscenities and swagger of 18^th century Scots has translated well into the crude and “in your face” style of communication Whoopi encourages today’s blacks to use.

It is a shame that today’s multicultural movement insists that history, especially black history, must be dumbed-down and rewritten to conform to current liberal politics, for it makes all who prescribe to it’s mantras blind to the riches that are unearthed eventually from an honest and continuing study of history.

To that point, a more complete look at the evolutionary history of the South reveals that early on, blacks in the South had to adapt to, were absorbed into and eventually began to identify with the dominating Scots-Irish culture.

In Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals, the author shares his copious research into how a variety of history scholars describe the attributes of that predominant white culture:

The cultural values and social patterns prevalent among Southern whites included an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship, reckless searches for excitement, lively music and dance and a style of religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions and flamboyant imagery.

Beyond the pitiful fact that imported African natives were stripped of their own culture and condemned to lives in slavery, it was their eventual identification with the worst elements of the Scot-Irish culture that left Southern blacks so ill-prepared for the world that awaited them as free men and women after the ultimate sacrifice of thousands of Americans in the in the War Between the States.

That is not to say that the racism that continued after the war and well into the 20^th century was not also a critical element in limiting the economic and social progress of blacks. Racism fettered most blacks, especially in the South, but despite that, many were able to improve their lives, mainly by evolving out of the restrictive ties to the ineffective social patterns of the Old World South.

But what Whoopi and her supporters won’t allow is for that evolution to continue and extend to all blacks; in fact, sadly, it seems she would like to see a re-identification with the culture of the Old South, a de-evolution back to behaviors and language that don’t serve blacks (or whites, for that matter) well at all.

In Sowell’s words, “What is painfully ironic is that such attitudes and behavior are projected today as aspects of a distinctive “black identity,” when in fact they are part of a centuries –old pattern among the whites in whose midst generations of blacks lived in the South.”

 Until the late 1960’s, many blacks of the South had worked hard enough over generations to throw off the negative aspects of their unique brand of “redneck” and “cracker” pride, and to cultivate the positive aspects of their Southern heritage. The economic fortunes of blacks all across the US were on the rise, families were intact, out-of-marriage pregnancies were a fraction of what they are today, education, proper use of language and upward socio-economic mobility were valued and the Civil Rights Act, which gave teeth to the aims of the Emancipation Proclamation, was passed in 1964.

Unfortunately, the black power politics of the late 1960’s, upon which most of Whoopi’s political philosophy and pronouncements are based, successfully turned the clock back to the aggressive bluster and false confidence of the Scot-Irish Old South. And from that a “gansta” culture, feeding off of the least desirable elements of its Southern roots, has come to predominate today’s social and political language and policies.

It is time for Whoopi and all of her ilk to let go of the past and to realize that the n-word is just plain low-class.

It is time for everyone to stop using the n-word, Whoopi. Be a leader. Let our people go!