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Playing With Fire
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Originally Posted by guccilvr
yeah it's never meant anything else.. because the word(s) just aren't open for discussion or evolution 
that's what's wrong with this country.. we claim to have freedom's but those freedoms are bound only by a stupid past and supposed racial boundry.. so why no evolutionize the theory and start it on a different path?? Black people call each other, or me a nigga or their nigger and it's cool.. say it back and I'm racist. So which is it in that context?? Is it an ok word or not?? You can't really have it both ways if you are only going to put the word into one subcategory that it can be used in. That's vocabulary suicide. |
Once again this saved me alot of typing....I'm not the greatest typist on Earth....I posted all of the text to put the bold, italicized quote in context.
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Nigger. It’s probably the most emotionally charged word in the English language... at least when spoken by a white person. When a white person calls a black person “nigger,” it encompasses so much hatred: it’s a reminder of the slave status once held by blacks, a reference to the perception of the black race as inferior, and a composite of all the negative stereotypes associated with blacks; a nigger is lazy, dumb, violent, and generally void of social mores. Yet somehow, the same word (or at least the variation, “nigga”) has been adopted by the black community with such innocuous translations as “brother” or “fellow black man.”
There’s a lot to the “n-word”- enough so that I wouldn’t attempt to address every aspect in this column. What I’d like to do is respond to some of the frequently asked questions and comments about the word nigger that I’ve heard from non-black friends and acquaintances during my life. And I’ll try to answer one of the biggest questions- when can or should the word nigger be used?
From what I can tell, most white people (at least those whom I encounter day to day) simply avoid using nigger altogether. These people usually refer to it only as “the n-word.” I have some white friends who are into hip-hop music, and when reciting the lyrics to a rap song, they’ll even leave out the word “nigga” when it comes up. Seems kinda like spelling out curse words to me, but I understand. I’m guessing these people recognize how highly charged the word is, and figure that as long as they never say the word, in any context, they can’t get in trouble. Sounds logical.
Other white people restrict their use of nigger to a very specific context: the afore-mentioned rap recitation, and repeating something they heard someone else say. This is also completely fine by me: I think only the most hypersensitive blacks would become upset by a white person saying “Did that guy just say nigger?” instead of “Did that guy just use the n-word?”
No, what bothers me is the use of nigger as a derogatory term against blacks (surprise), and the respective justifications given. For example, one I heard a lot as a kid was “Well, there’s black people and there’s niggers.” Of course, the black person the speaker is addressing is invariably one of the “black people” - it’s all the other pants-sagging slang talkers who are the niggers. To the folks who used the black people v. nigger excuse, however, I was pretty sure I was just one number on the volume dial of my Tupac-playing tape deck away from niggerdom at any given time. Thing is, I think some of these folks thought they were being progressive by taking the time to separate black people from the nigger masses. I’m convinced those kids meant to pay me a compliment by including me in their personally certified category of non-nigger black people, but to me it always sounded more like “for being part of an intellectually inferior race of watermelon-slurping monkey descendants... you’re not half bad.”
Perhaps a step up in sophistication, but no less insulting to my intelligence was “a nigger is just a bad, lazy person- they don’t necessarily have to be black.” I remember a friend’s mother telling me I could look nigger up in the dictionary; “Nigger means a thief,” she said. I did look it up. It says “disparaging term for a black person.” But even if it did have a different Webster’s meaning, how often have you heard nigger to describe your run-of-the-mill lazy white or latino person? It’s as though someone can claim “Anyone can be a nigger,” and all of a sudden I’m supposed to step back and say “You mean all this time I’ve been thinking that when people say ‘nigger’ they’re talking about blacks, and really they were just talking about lazy thieves? Boy do I feel silly. I guess there’s just so much overlap that I never noticed. Well, slur on, I say! Far be it from me to stand in the way of your niggerization of society’s derelicts and hooligans.”
Finally, I’d like to address the most oft-heard protest from white people regarding the word nigger. You may know what’s coming. “How come ya’ll can call each other nigger, but you get mad when a white person calls you nigger?” On first glance, it seems that the speaker has identified a fatal contradiction in black people’s use and perception of the word: the same word, spoken by two different parties, resulting in wildly different reactions- it sure sounds like discrimination to me. And isn’t that what all you nig- I mean, black people were so upset about in the first place? But let’s look closer. Pointing out the discrepancy in allowed use of nigger seems to imply perceived unfairness in either one of two things: either white people feel they should also have the right to refer to black people as nigger, or they don’t think black people should be allowed to call each other nigger. And though some white people may feel that the wheels of social progression have wrongfully deprived them free nigger use, I’ll assume that the question intends to expose the apparent irony in black people referring to each other with a term that was originally intended to be derogatory towards their race.
Truthfully, I don’t think that black people calling each other nigger is that ironic or hard to figure out (actually should be “nigga”- I’ve never heard the “er” enunciated when used in this context). I think a sociologist’s explanation might be: “What better way to diffuse the power of a word that has caused so much pain than to adopt the word, claim nigger for black use, but translate it as something like “fellow black man”, something engendering racial solidarity?” A comparative analysis could point out that some gays will refer to homosexuals as queers or even fags, as a sort of “you can’t hurt us with that word anymore” statement. Common sense relates it to a family situation: I can call my sister a bitch cause she’s my sister- you don’t have the right to do that. My gut reaction to the protest against black people calling each other nigger is probably the least sophisticated: why do you care? But after lots of thought, I’ve found the correct answer: it’s all about intent.
As an attorney, I feel compelled to give an example that shows the importance of intent when a questionable act is done. Say you run over someone in your car and kill them. This could be anything from 1st degree murder (waiting outside someone’s house, planning to run them over when they walk out), to misdemeanor vehicular homicide (accidentally hitting a pedestrian while speeding), to justifiable homicide (running over the carjacker who’s shooting into your car). Same act, same result, but you could get anything from the death penalty, to no penalty at all. That’s how I look at it with using the word nigger. Yelling nigger while lynching a black guy- 1st degree niggercide; telling a nigger joke around your redneck friends- conspiracy to niggerize; singing along with a 50-cent song and failing to pause for the n-word- unintentional niggation, maybe? Regardless, I think it might be a good idea to have the rules spelled out. After all, using the word nigger is like having unprotected sex- it may never be totally OK, but it’s a lot safer if you know what you’re getting into.
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http://aarontalks.com/niggers.html
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