I may be in the minority here, and my view deals with America, mostly, but please read this.
Nigger and its variations are examples of words that have become something more than words. I can’t think of any racial slur that comes even close to nigger in America in terms of the history and harm it can carry with it.
As someone who thinks about language a lot (as I know @DominicX does) I’m tempted to tell everyone that a word is just a word, that it doesn’t have to be this monstrous thing, and that the acceptability of its use is always relativistic. I sometimes believe this myself, and I admit that with black friends I’ll occasionally use the word (nigga) ironically. We are not idiots and we know what the word means and we know what implications come with it. And yet even though we use it ironically, there is always a just-noticeable tremor of discomfort behind the word, a tremor that the irony is intended to mask. I think a lot of people want to be okay with this word and demonstrate that they aren’t prejudiced by using it as innocuously and casually as possible. It’s basically a verbal landmine in the American landscape, and people are trying to defuse it. But the problem is that it’s too big. Everybody knows this word and everybody has to make a decision w/r/t how they feel about it. An adult can’t avoid reacting to the word nigger somehow. And people who abuse the word – who use it for the often negative reaction it forces from literally every mature person (but especially black people) – are in my mind terrible people.
Having said that the word is a weapon, it’s necessary to be aware that anybody can use a weapon for just about any purpose. People employ the word in the name of racism, unfortunately, but they also employ it negatively – i.e., they abuse the word by not saying it and by forcing other people to avoid saying it – to further sometimes bogus and overblown wars against the moribund form of a word that constitutes only a sliver of the language of hate in America.
That brings me to @aprilsimnel, who in my mind is employing (perhaps accidentally) a rather insidious and dangerous rhetoric in her first quip, where she appeals to everybody’s self-righteous side by making generalizations that are socially very difficult to disagree with. And though I agree with the direction of her moralism, something bothers me about it.
@aprilsimnel
Older black people don’t want anyone using it.
It seems strange to preface your entire post with this sentence, as though a) it justifies your arguments or b) all ‘older black people’ everywhere don’t want anyone ever anywhere using the word. Why does it have to be this sort of ultimatum? Are you an older black person? Maybe you are, or maybe you know what all ‘older black people’ want exactly. I hope I’m not being presumptuous here when I say that maybe you are being presumptuous there. I am not an older black person, so I’m not going to pretend to know what older black people expect, or what makes a black person ‘older,’ but I talk with old and young black people semi-regularly and sometimes the older guys say it more than the younger. I’m not sure what it matters anyway if ‘older black people’ don’t want others to say the word (or any word). My politically cautious mother doesn’t like me saying ‘black people’ instead of ‘African Americans,’ but it doesn’t matter to me. I’m not saying we should (or even have reason to) disregard the advice or wishes of an older generation. But, as we know, nigger or nigga means different things to different people, and the differences are most salient when we compare generations. Older generations may as well be talking about a different word – that’s how much the meaning has changed.
Dave Chappelle stopped using it.
Really? In one of the most recent videos I’ve seen of Chappelle, he uses the word at least once, in a small venue in London. If he did stop saying it – and I believe you, but I haven’t heard about it – then I’m sure he stopped doing it in most of his bigger shows because people just weren’t getting it. A great part of his audience is white, after all. But it seems naive to me to believe that he has sworn off the word entirely and doesn’t use it privately or in a day-to-day social context: i.e., among people who know him and won’t misunderstand him.
Ask yourself why white people are so damn desperate to call someone a “nigger”. I can guarantee you it’s because deep down, there are people out there who want to call someone who’s black a hateful name…
Yes, there are people like that out there: we call them idiots, bigots, any number of names. But this is still a sweeping generalization. Do you really feel a great number of white people are ‘desperate’ to use nigger? As though they’re constantly waiting for their chance? That is absurd. It also is self-righteous and phony to say that you can guarantee you know the moralistic goings on of another human being’s head. And while I agree with you that, sadly, a ton of people are using it because they sustain some unfounded hatred for those different than they, I think a ton more white people throw it around simply because they’re ignorant. I’m not saying ignorance is more excusable than hatred, but there is a distinction and I think it’s important to make.
Younger black people (40 and younger) using it have convinced themselves that it’s a form of affectionate greeting, or whatever, but does anyone see white people saying, “Yo, my honkie,” or Jewish people calling each other “kike”? Or Latinos and Hispanics saying, “What up, spic”? No.
Actually, yes. Are you being presumptuous again? I have known Jewish people who have called one another ‘kike’ and Chinese people who have called and continue to call one another ‘chink’ and it’s done in good humor and it’s funny to them (and, strangely, especially uncomfortable and alienating to me). As we know, it’s not uncommon to ‘claim’ an offensive slur for oneself by either completely adopting it or using it ironically to make fun of the people who employ it seriously. Obviously nigger is different, especially in this country. It’s on its own plane of meaning. But I am deeply bothered by people who presume that any invocation of a certain word – any word – is automatically and non-negotiably hateful. I’m even more deeply bothered by your assertion that black people have ‘convinced themselves that it’s a form of affectionate greeting,’ as if you govern what a word must mean to different people, and as if those who have ‘convinced themselves’ are simply misinformed, or didn’t get your memo that we are all supposed to be avoiding this word. You’re implying that you know better than they do when it comes to the meaning and proper usage / non-usage of the word. That’s not good, @aprilsimnel. It’s very bad. It’s incredibly douchey. Even elitist. I think you have come to hate the word nigger so much that you are actually beginning to look down on people who are comfortable when using it among themselves. I don’t mean to presume. But do you see how ridiculous that is? That’s too self-righteous for me.
It’s such deeply embedded internalized self-hatred for young black people to use this word, whether the black kids using this realize it or not.
This is a common argument, even a stale one, and it might be half-truthful were it not such an oversimplification. You are right in saying that the word carries the connotation of strangeness to it: ‘the Other,’ the non-white (whiteness having presented itself as the standard in this country, or even in the Western hemisphere). The word means ‘black’ in a hemisphere that places great symbolic value in the color white and everything it implies. That’s difficult to deal with. So certainly I agree with you here, in part. (I am white, so I don’t know, but I think it must be very hard for black people to use that word without being aware, on at least some level, that it’s alienating.) I would also guess it’s more complicated than that, though. The word stands for many things, is used in different ways by many people. It’s frankly not fair to claim that everyone who uses the word is verbalizing some deep-seated self-hatred. As a theory it might be feasible for the origin of the word’s reclaimancy by black people, but someone who was born in the last several decades and is using the word probably isn’t using it because he hates himself. But I admit again that at this point I’m just speculating.
I liken it to poor black people who whip their kids with extension cords, and have no idea that that shit’s a legacy from slavery.
A compelling connection, but various forms of corporal punishment (including whipping) have been used for centuries and centuries and centuries, as educational and judicial and domestic practices – not just slavery. Rather than saying whipping is a legacy of slavery, say that whipping in slavery is the sad and ruthless legacy of corporal punishment.
And white people instinctively know this. That’s why they want to use it so damn bad.
Yes, it is by instinct that I know this word, whose meaning is always changing and is always determined by sociocultural happenings and opinion, is representative only and always of the hidden and ‘internalized’ self-hatred of black people. What? You’re telling me white people know by instinct that black people hate themselves? Maybe I’m not reading this part correctly. Is that what you’re saying? I thought we were all people, the same animal with the same instincts.
They want to call people “niggers” and maintain, at least on an emotional level, a feeling of dominance over someone else. That’s what I think.
I think that’s probably mostly right. Then again, all language works like that. Nigger is just an unfortunate short-cut to the false sense of dominance. But is the problem the word or the way the word is used?
I do have a point:
I want you to realize that by seeking a hegemony of absence w/r/t to this word you’re effectively removing any possibility of its defusion. Do you realize by forcing others to avoid using it, you’re highlighting the strictly harmful aspects of the word? You’re only reminding them that it can be hurtful – no, worse than that: you’re telling them it can only be hurtful, that any invocation of the word is automatically and irrevocably wrong. In my opinion that is both cognitively and linguistically irresponsible. Moreover, by prohibiting the word you are necessarily going to make it more potent and more harmful. You think you’re doing a service to people, but you’re only making the word more powerful. I’d like to see others use it less frequently and non-hatefully, too, but I hope you realize the implications of trying to get rid of a word. Why is sex so good in Nineteen Eighty-Four for Winston? for Julia? Because it’s prohibited.
I’m also cautious about the idea of hating a word. How can you hate a word? Even a word as big as nigger. If any word in this country should be hated, it’s that one, but there’s a dangerous line one might accidentally cross. Hating a word might turn into hating a person who uses a word – very bad, very morally lazy.
I don’t think people should carry on saying it the way they do, but I’d rather see nigger become an artifact than disappear altogether.
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