Does "Nigger" Offend You?

[izeveryboyin]

When I was younger I was a pretty militant black kid. I read George L. Jackson and worshiped Asata Shakur as an icon. I was convinced Amiri Baraka and Sonja Sanchez had the right idea, and I felt empowered by anything I read about the struggle and perseverance of the black man... so much so that I felt it was unnecessary for me to have white friends. I believed what Malcolm X said before he went to Mecca about how the black man could never succeed in the white man's system. And the funny thing is that while I was so busy telling everyone about that, I was too blind to notice the sexist tone of that statement. Always the man and not the woman. Or perhaps I did subconsciously and felt "the black struggle" to be the greater cause of the two. Whatever the reason, I had allowed my pride and awe of these powerful black figures in history, intelligent black men and women whose lives were not centered around promoting the violent gang and drug culture of my neighborhood and ones like it, to turn me into a supremacist. I was awestruck by men and women who used history and wit, and strategy in order to push the black race to a new frontier. A better frontier. And it took a lot of time, a lot more reading and a lot of traveling to open my eyes.
No doubt there is and pretty much always has been a struggle for black people in America… but we are at the point now where it only continues b/c we allow it. We have been pacifying ourselves, ignoring the core of what those powerful black people were trying to say: stand up for yourself. Be strong. Even I had forgotten it. I would fly off the handle at any white person who looked like he or she was about to use the word “nigger” against me, then I took it home to the streets, that word. I took it home to my friends, and their friends, and my family, and my extended family. That word was as much a part of my vocabulary as any other, a term of endearment. Yet it was the same word I was afraid of in certain circumstances. Once I got over my militant phase I decided it would be better if I didn’t use the word at all. I started scolding my friends about using it. Giving my mother and father dirty looks. This went on for nearly two years… this boycott of the word “nigger”. And I felt secure that my reasons where sound enough that no one could debate w/me on them. Some of them I still believe are valid reasons today, but over time I discovered something. Once I became serious about writing, and my hobby, my passion became the artistry of words, I discovered that words are what you make of them. They really are. You give a word like that power and it rules your decisions. It changes things about you. It can in some cases ruin your life. Words have that kind of power. If they didn’t we wouldn’t use them so much.
I decided to take a new approach to the whole thing. Don’t boycott the word. Boycott the idea. Take the power out of the word. Take the violence of word. Stop being afraid of the word. Be free. If we spent nearly as much time working towards building a better foundation between the black culture and the white culture instead of arguing over a word we’d be a lot more peaceful. KKK has very little leg to stand as of now, but they have a leg, and that’s what matters. Fight that. Ask the fucking FCC why they get say the black man should be made extinct, or sent back to Africa, or ask them why Bill Bennett not only keeps his radio show after making his comment, but lands a gig at CNN soon after. Ask America why Barak Obama is the only black man in the US Senate today. Remember that the enemy is the idea, not the word. My school has little colorful circles in all the buildings that say “create change”. Create change. It’s not hard, we’ve been doing it for years. Just keep the momentum. Keep the speed.
What promoted me to write this was the vast influx of criticism I have received from some of my white friends about my use of the word in their presence. It seems strangely ironic to me that the shoe is on the other foot. Most of my friends in general are writers, hippies, liberals and artists. I go to an arts college and I’m a writer. It comes with the territory. But it definitely seems that the more my friends push for political correctness the more I am put off by it. You know what term I think is just as harsh as nigger? “African American”. Let me explain why. Yes my ancestry is in some African nation that my grandmother’s grandmother probably didn’t know, and that’s the point. I’ve never been to Africa. Nor has anyone in my family for several generations. You know where the “Scott” family hails from? Right here. Reach down and pick up some of that polluted American soil. It’s got just as much of our blood in it as any white man’s. Probably more.
If we have to talk about my ancestors, then we’ll talk about them. We’ll talk about how they tended farm, nursed the master’s children before their own, kept house, BUILT house. Now suddenly white America wants to call me an African American? No, thanks. You know why? B/c the African was beat out of mothers who spoke it to their children. Beat out of husbands who spoke it to their wives. Stripped from those who desired to bury their dead in the way they remembered. No, the “African” was taken from us along time ago… all that’s left of it is our skin, which is now a variety of shades from milky brown, to caramel, to midnight b/c along w/everything else the ancestors of white America raped the mothers and sisters and aunts of my ancestors. Now suddenly we’re called African American. It’s bullshit. I hate that term. I’d say don’t call us anything but once slaves were free white America then decided we needed race distinction to keep their half of the world clean. And no, my skin isn’t black but most people of Caucasian descent don’t have white skin either. I don’t know any black people that call themselves African American around another black person. Why hide? Be what you are, who you are. If that terms feels right, use it. If it doesn’t, say what you mean. Hiding is what has the country so fucked up and twisted now. Now I certainly didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant but I felt like I should explain myself before just posing the question. So tell me, after all that, does “nigger” offend you?

[hester_prynne]

Wow Izzy this is a great post, thank you. I agree with you too, that it's the power being used behind the words more than the words.

I mean, how many times have I laughed and called my girlfriends bitches in a most endearing way and they knew it, and they laughed with me.

But there have been times when I've called a woman a bitch and it wasn't endearing either, I used it to wield power over them, to put them down into a stereotype, out of my own anger, fear, or frustration, always later to feel very bad about my weakness in losing my cool, and for saying things I didn't mean, that would have dissipated in silence had I let them....

It's the power behind words, the meanings we give them, the reasons we use them that must be considered, because there is another depth to it, beyond the indignant responses, that needs to be addressed, usually ignorance, anger, conditioning, rebellion, edginess, angst, Bush, Cheney, ...etc.

I'm a 53 year old white woman. I qualify for words like hag, has been, crone, bitch, hole, stankho, fat ass........all those words...and then some!!!!

Again, a great post Izzy. A subject to discuss for sure.
H

[stilltrucking]

Nigger only offends me if you come up behind my back and hit me upside the head with a piece of two by four.

Baltimore Maryland, 1980 I got a little too color blind. I worked out of a teamster hall with some good men. Black and white. After a while you just stop thinking about race. So when a union brother we all called "rerun" asked me to give him a ride home one night I did not think about going into the black ghetto after dark. After I dropped rerun off I was stopped at red light when a man came over and started beating on the hood of my car. I must have thought I was Lyndon Johnson, cause instead of flooring it and hauling my almost white ass out of there, I got out of my car and tried to reason with him. Then I made my second mistake I turned my back on him. After he hit me he called me a nigger. How did he know? There used to be a saying in baltimore that a nigger ain't nothing but a jew turned inside out.

For some reason I can't get the image of that white bitch laying in the gutter with her throat slit and the image of the black college kids cheering the oj verdict on tv.

Malcom, where are you when we need you most? Rest in peace malcom, rest in peace.

[bohonato]

In 1990, after the bombing of a gay bar in Greenwich Village, Queer Nation organized thousands of marchers carrying signs that read "Dykes and Fags Bash Back!"

Reclaiming the words Queer, Dyke, and Fag rendered them useless to those opposed to homosexuality (well, in theory.) But look where we've come in 15 years. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Queer as Folk.

The terms 'sexual preference' and 'lifestyle' piss me off more than 'fag' ever could.

[izeveryboyin]

Hest, I am so w/you on the bitch thing. My friends throw the word around like a game of hot potatoe, but under different circumstances, the word is flipped. I am angry. I am agressive. The idea behind the word really does mean more than the word itself, and it's so much more powerful b/c each person gives it their own seperate meaning. Each person makes it into what they want to make it.

ST, whoever said that shit about a nigger being a jew turned inside out needs to stop breathing right now if he hasn't already. He's a fucking idiot who doesn't know his ass from his armpit. As for being too color blind, well your implication that you were careless in assuming he lived in an okay neighborhood regardless of his color makes me sorry that you realized your "mistake". And I can't tell you how fucking sick I am of hearing someone bring up the fucking OJ verdict everytime a black person mentions racial inequality. You know what image I can't get out of my head? Photographs of pale babies w/white hoods over their heads looking on in awe as their father burns a cross. That 19-year-old boy who in 1981 was kidnapped, beaten, then hung from a tree. I think about how the 1st conviction of murder a kkk clansmen received didn't happen until 1998. I think about how world church of the creator's website preaches purity of race, along with offering racial slurs, and a generally threatening compendium of supremacy and we are more concerned w/checking our myspace than trying to figure out why the W hasn't gotten over to criticize them yet... the way he did all those websites that got people aware of his staggering stupidity. I think about slavery, KKK marches, jim crow enforcemnt. I get images of that. And there's a lot more of that to envision than there are black men getting off murder charges for the death of white women... a helluva lot more.

[izeveryboyin]

The terms 'sexual preference' and 'lifestyle' piss me off more than 'fag' ever could.

truer words were never spoken. And I'm not even gay... most of the time. haha.

--k

p.s were you at the rally?

[stilltrucking]

As for being too color blind, well your implication that you were careless in assuming he lived in an okay neighborhood regardless of his color makes me sorry that you realized your "mistake". And I can't tell you how fucking sick I am of hearing someone bring up the fucking OJ verdict everytime a black person mentions racial inequality.

I knew what kind of neighborhood he lived in. My mistake was not realizing there is such a thing as black racism.

I know better now.

[Zlatko Waterman]

All such epithets as the "N" word are revolting and unacceptable to me, and were even when my black students used to employ the "N" word with each other.

I suppose I am just limited and old fashioned, unable to be "cool" , whatever that might be. Thelonious Monk was cool, but didn't prove it with the "N" word-- he proved it with his piano and his compositions.

I don't advocate using words for ethnic groups or racial identity that Dr. Martin Luther King would have found offensive. He is one of my heroes, for all his occasional failings. J. Edgar Hoover, who may or may not have used the "N" word in private and who tapped King's telephone, is not. Most white folks I know today are rather sensitive to the word "Negro" also, which King used publicly to refer to African-Americans. The problem of describing racial and ethnic groups respectfully remains a problem, at times.

I suggest we find a really repulsive word to insult each other with, like "Republican."

( for instance):

" Why you, you-- low-down no account REPUBLICAN you-- you advocate murder in the name of "bringing liberty", lie about world-threatening weapons, execute the mentally retarded, don't exert yourself to save one of America's greatest cities, and talk about torture like it was a children's game-- you, you--

REPUBLICAN!!"


--Z

[izeveryboyin]

ST, sorry to misunderstand. But I'm still sick of all hearing about OJ.

Z, I don't knock anyone who is against the use of the word "nigger". I really don't. I just find it nicely ironic that more white people berate me for my use of it than black people. I'm kind of like Voltaire when it comes to people's opinion of my casual usage of "nigger". "I may not like what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death you right to say it". I guess some things you just can't back down on. No matter how liberal you might be. I'm honestly not suggesting that it's "cool" for anyone to use "nigger". That wasn't my intention. I don't use the word to be cool. Actually, I now use to offend people. I want them offended. No one ever does or says anything until they're pissed off. Once they are we can have an argument and I can give them my perspective. You may not like it, but at least you heard it... and if I yell loud enough a few other people might too.

--k

[mousey1]

I was thinking similar thoughts today myself Izzy. We give words their power. The more fuss we make about it the more power we give it. Laughing in the face of these words is far more effective because it takes the intended sting out of them.

Halfbreed is a word that has always been able to hurt me. Why? Because I know it is meant derogatorily. It is meant to put me in my place. To make me feel less than. But it can do nothing of the kind unless I allow it to. I will no longer allow that word to offend me...why should it...why should I give that word that much power. Why should I give the user of such words that much power.

To twist another well known phrase to fit my purposes here...Words don't hurt people, people hurt people!

Anyway, having said all that, the fact remains that "nigger" has become a powerful word and we shall probably always be stuck with it as a means of offense and insult.

I shall now relate a funny...or not so funny story...which also highlights how incredibly dumb I can be!

When I was a little girl my family and I referred to Brazil nuts as nigger toes. I don't recall ever even questioning why, it was just what they were called. To be honest, as a child I don't even think I knew what the word meant, I was that naive. Well, a few years back, while at a friend's home for Christmas, who happened to be black, I spotted a lovely bowl of Brazil nuts on the table and I, awash with joyous childhood memories exclaimed, "Oh, nigger toes!" Oh my good Christ! What an absolutely stupid thing to blurt; but in my defense it was really only an innocent childhood recollection popped to the fore. Well now, whether this good woman actually ever heard me I'll never know, she never let on either way; but that innocent stupidity could have resulted in a scene of angry words and hurt feelings...and rightly so! I'd've been back pedalling into next week let me tell ya.

Soooooo...stupid is as stupid does...and sometimes it's best just to ignore stupid...or at least bear the fact in mind when dealing with those of us who suffer from it!

Thank-you so much for sharing your feelings about this Iz.

Anyway, and in closing, the word is not even in my vocabulary...unless I'm talkin' 'bout nuts. Ya, ya, go ahead, slap me sideways!

[izeveryboyin]

"nigger toes"? haha. who are your parents??!

"Anyway, having said all that, the fact remains that "nigger" has become a powerful word and we shall probably always be stuck with it as a means of offense and insult." Yes it has become a pwoerful word and I hate it. We can't let go of it. We have been letting the monster behind the word "nigger" mind-fuck us for centuries. You'd think our brains would be sore by now.

--k

[mousey1]

Well, my mom was as innocent as I, I am sure. Dear old Dad on the other hand...I'm pretty certain he knew from whence we cometh with that one. His generation, it was tit for tat for sure. No mincing of the words. Thinking back now I get the feeling he was a bit of an Archie Bunker type.

[stilltrucking]

These days when I am around someone who throws that N word in my face I keep my back against the wall.

[izeveryboyin]

haha... now anytime I think of you mousey I will imagine the set of all in the family.

st, why would you put your back against the wall? the pain't still wet.

--k

[Arcadia]

mmm... I'm yellow/green in winter!