The word conjures pictures of downtrodden, degraded, broken -spirited dark skinned people, or like a friend says sarcastically, “darkies”.
Coined during slavery, it was the only consistent word used to describe African Americans for centuries by their white slave owners and then later fellow citizens during Reconstruction and subsequently “Jim Crow”.
Fast forward to 2008 and Rev. Jackson’s comments on Fox News. Chastising the Reverend is useless and counterproductive. Imus and others in the media use it, rappers use it, racists and non -racists alike use it. It is in the lexicon. The question is or should be, why? Unconsciously we are not rid of the connotation it implies.
It is easy to understand the stance the young people who use it take, they are using it and by doing so they are removing the power to hurt that it causes, if only in their own minds. It is understandable in the black male community, “My nigga” can be a term of endearment. The rappers use it to incite and make money. The black diaspora in general uses it.
Rev. Jackson when calling for the end of the word knew that the call was for white people but as usual instead of honest dialogue, the integrationist in him won out and he emphasized everyone should cease to use it. That was his first mistake. Specificity at that point would have brought clarity to the call , but this is about power or the lack of it.
White people want it to go away, after all, slave traders invented it to describe and hold power over their black chattel. Somehow along the way it was changed to the N-Word , as if that is somehow less offensive when written or referred to. One must think it in order to write it, this N-word, without actually writing it.
The discussion needs to be what it means then and now. Is it strictly a taboo description as some whites bleet, “Why can they use it “? See Michele Malkin.
The answer can be found in decades of dehumanization and systematic genocide. That quite simply is why whites can not use the word. It is offensive when used by whites. To pretend anything else is dishonest and quite frankly tedious and tiresome.
It may be debatable and grist for the mill in the Black communities across America, it is hard for whites to believe there is a word they cant say in public , anymore. White privilege dictates there is nothing that can’t be said by those who are in the majority. Once the word was deemed not politically correct, it became “unacceptable”.
Whites are simply entitled to say anything blacks say and therein lies the problem. When you think this word are you thinking of an upstanding hard-working black American or a “thug” ghetto -type, rapper, etc. ? The word is racially charged and despite heroic efforts to the contrary, is still around. Even after its symbolic burial by the NAACP, in a casket.
Behind closed doors in the black community the word is used without thought. Behind closed doors in the white community the word is used without thought. The fact that this even got air time , is typical of a racially charged and largely unresolved problem in our country. Jackson believed he was speaking to another black man off mic. It proves two things only. He didn’t think, and he has become largely irrelevant in the current political dialogue. Why he said it knowing he was in enemy camp, shows poor judgement at best, by design at worst, neither of which is worth the effort to explore.
A Talk show host, young ,white, and female reduced to tears because she was so offended by the mere mention and debate of the word, smacks of a disingenuous stance, novice acting or dangerous naivete of what has been reality in this country since before she was born.
Curious this word is so hated and feared. It is a powerful word. It described the citizens of this country for decades. Citizens who fought for and died for and slaved for this Country. Recipients of this word, however onerous its perception is proclaimed to be, helped build the very country we now enjoy on the backs of their free labor.
Now a black person uses this pejorative, “niggas” , subsequently apologizes for it, although it is very commonplace in our language, everyone denies ever having uttered the word nigger, but Jackson.
That is hypocrisy.
I don’t know what to make of these cultural word obsessions.
It is a bit too complicated to be politically correct.
Is it okay for a woman to call another woman “a slut” or “a whore,” while those who invented the word in order to serve their own needs and desires are prohibited from it? Somehow, it seems more violent and self-serving out of the mouths of women, because it is intended to brand the competition and set the markers of who is acceptable and therefore socially protected and who will be unsafe, unprotected, socially disposable, and sexually consumed. The whore is the object of desire and illicit gratification for the male; the madonna ensures the status quo, social stability, but gives very little gratification, and demands overwhelming amounts of responsibility.
Does it work differently for race than gender? I don’t know.
As an anecdote, my mother related a story to me recently. She was a nurse’s aid in a small town hospital. One of nurses who she worked with, who was also one of her dearest friends, was black. Both women were constantly on the lookout for their jobs because of discrimination. The friend had enemies because she was black, my mother because she was morbidly obese. They watched each others’ backs and their friendship was strengthened by this political alliance of sisterhood.
So my mother was relating to me recently how the term “nigger rich” really bothered her, how even though she was raised with it and it wasn’t meant to do harm to “anyone,” she saw it as being racist and defamatory. “The only time I remember using the word ‘nigger,’” she said, “was with Betty. One night we were working and joking and Betty told me ‘you’d better be careful, you’re beginning to sound like poor white trash.” And my mother asked if that was any worse than being “nigger rich.”
This bantering was in good spirit, was comic relief for women working the graveyard shift in a hospital, and perhaps translates quite poorly, but neither woman for good or for ill was offended by the references. Rather, there was a very unconscious yet overt recognition of the class system they were navigating in a small WASP town.
I don’t know, I think sometimes we give language too much power, and the point of the above shows that language can be very fluid and depends on a lot of circumstances. Would I argue that these women were misguided in their use of language? They were who they were–two women doing tough work and surviving through a strong friendship, aware that they were vulnerable and had formed not just a friendship but an protective alliance.
I don’t think my mother or her friend were simply ignorant; I think they were acutely aware of their reality, however unconsciously.
It seemed like a completely appropriate use of language between two women joined in economic survival against “the powers that be.”
Personally, I think all this brouhaha over language speaks to deeper issues.
Headline: Jesse Jackson uses the “N-word.”
Meanwhile, we’ve become a nation that is morally and spiritually bankrupt, violent, careless, and seemingly heartless.
But Jesse Jackson using the “N-word” is supposed to be important.
Hypocrisy runs rampant.
Very good post. Thank you.
Comment by bluesmokeofparadise — July 18, 2008 @ 5:17 pm |
Not only do some white people want the word to go away, black people should especially want it to go away. When was the last time you heard a Hispanic refer to him or herself as the “S” word, or a Jew refer to himself as the “H” word, or an Italian refer to himself as the “W” or “D” word? Come on, people who use that word, black or white, are keeping a horrible word out there. It amazes me that the very blacks who exercise liberal use of that word are the first to yell in outrage when the Kramer guy or other white people use it. If we blacks use that word, we are giving others permission to use it, also.
Comment by Grissy — July 19, 2008 @ 2:40 pm |
The black experience is different than the Hispanic experience.
And some of us believe the experience of women trumps all racial experience, given that gender bias is universal.
The Hispanic population was never subjected to institutionalized slavery in this country with the far reaching depth and systemic oppression that blacks experienced, a reality that is still reflected in prison populations, as one example.
FYI, I have heard almost all races refer to themselves as the S word, the H word, etc., ad naseum, usually men though, not women.
Most women will not refer to themselves with the C-word, or the S word, or even the B word . . .
so I wonder which group really suffers the deepest burden of language’s arrows, or recognizes exactly what is going on with such nomenclature.
Comment by bluesmokeofparadise — July 21, 2008 @ 1:04 pm |
When I hear young black children in my neighborhood use the “N” word to refer to themselves and others, it tears my heart out. It is bad enough that adults use that word and that is where they get it from. Martin Luther King is turning over in his grave! We did not overcome to have the right to demean ourselves and our owm people. Keeping that word out there does not make for a kinder, gentler world and no amount of justification from so-called celebrities, rappers or Jessie Jackson can make it so.
Comment by Grissy — July 23, 2008 @ 6:05 pm |
I have heard some people refer to themselves in less than flattering terms, but nothing approaching the level of excess as the “N” word. Keeping the word out there does not take the sting out of it for many of us. Hearing black children use the word to refer to one another is tantamount to being stabbed in the heart.
FYI, I work for a city agency in a large metropolitan center which provides services to a wide spectrum of different groups. Walk a mile in my shoes and sit with me for a day while I do my job. While it is true that Hispanics did not suffer the same level of systemic and institutional racism as American blacks, they still suffer greatly from poor health care, language barriers, poor educational opportunities. Yes, some of them even suffer from bias and racism, also. Some are in abusive relationships and my agency has assisted in getting them and their children out of toxic situations and environments.
I once had a Hispanic co-worker who constantly used the “N” word in the office. Each time he used the “N” word, one of my black co-workers used the S” word in return. It was not easy to sit between the two of them when they got started but eventually, he got the message. He did not like the “S” word at all and he ceased using it.
As for the comment that “some of us believe that the experience of all women trumps all racial experience,” all I can do with that is lmfao!
Comment by Grissy — July 25, 2008 @ 12:12 am |
Grissy
Divergent viewpoints are as plentiful as the mechanisms that foster them. I completely disagree that the term Nigger , can be defined by those who created it, anymore. That somehow they have tacit approval by Blacks to use the word.That is false.
It is now defined by a non monolithic group, Blacks. Those who were under its penalties.
It is no longer the domain of the white racist, its definition has been changed. Factions that think it is a term of endearment and those who still believe it harkens back to the days of slavery and all of its previous weight. Permission can be given to those who now have changed the direction and the “sting as you put it. It is no longer an option for the originators.
The empowerment comes from the ability to choose ones own chains.
Comment by zacca — July 30, 2008 @ 12:22 am |
Blue Smoke
Cultural words have always been a way of releasing and bonding. I think this word in particular, causes so much angst because it is a word that had life and death power at one time and those who used it are no longer “allowed”. While its target can use it freely. “Flipping the script “, as it were. Your personal anecdote, it shows the commonality and levity one can bring to a situation when two women caught in similar situations relate.
Comment by zacca — July 30, 2008 @ 12:29 am |
Zacca, thank you for your response to my comment. Let us agree to respectfully disagree. No, the definition of the “N” word will never change for many of us. And, I hope it never will. Anyone who uses the word should be ashamed of themselves and may a special pox come down on black people who use the term toward each other. Dr. King is spinning in his grave.
Thanks again for the dialogue.
Best,
Grissy
Comment by Grissy — July 30, 2008 @ 6:20 pm |