Another word for you do not matter
There’s the small but vocal group of middle-class black intellectuals who claim to have “reclaimed” the word, to have turned it into a term of endearment instead of a tool of oppression. There are generally four schools of thought on the word “nigga.” There’s the first and largest group - black working-class (but not exclusively so) people who say it casually because it’s what they’ve always done, or simply because they don’t like being told what to do. In his brilliant piece entitled “ Exporting the N-word,” Coleman Collins explains, There is a lively debate in African American communities between those who think it’s time to “ Bury the N-Word” and those who think it can be reclaimed as a word of camaraderie and brotherhood/sisterhood. Why Should We Get a Say in the Conversation about That Word? Our people gave up the privilege to use that word the moment we invented it as a tool of oppression. I don’t care how unfair you think it is that someone else gets to use it when we don’t. Thus, I really don’t care how much White folks want to use that word. And it was used just about every time a Black person was whipped, chained, beaten, insulted, spat upon, raped, lynched, or otherwise humiliated and mistreated by White folks. Well, in the midst of all that shit, there was a word invented by White people as a pejorative for Black folks. Oh, and remember that time after slavery when Black people were locked in a system called Jim Crow that used a similar fear of violence and repression to keep Black people in “their place?” You know that whole 600 year time period when White Europeans were buying and selling Black Africans as chattel?Īnd remember how that whole system was enforced by a violent system of repression whereby Black slaves who did not act the way the White folks wanted them to were beaten and murdered? Here’s why it’s not okay for us to say it, no matter what Black folks are doing: 1. Perhaps you can hear it better or differently if a White person explains why exactly we don’t get to use the n-word, regardless of what Black folks are doing.Īnd I know what you’re thinking, “But-But-‘They’ get to say it all the time!” Regardless of the reason, maybe it’s time for a different tact. Or perhaps we just have trouble hearing the voices of those we consider, at some basic level, to be lesser, not fully human. Perhaps this is because we don’t like being told that anything is off limits to us. Innumerable.Īnd despite how important listening to the voices of marginalized and oppressed people is to social justice work on the part of those with privilege, White people on the whole really seem to have hard time with this one. I can only imagine the number of dimes Black people would have. I’d likely be a wealthy man if I had a dime for every time I’ve heard a White person ask “If Black people can just throw the n-word around all the time, why is it not okay for White people to use that word?” In the midst of this debate, though, there is generally one rule when it comes to the n-word on which there is almost total consensus among Black people: New debates are springing up in a long-contentious dialogue about reclamation of oppressive language.ĭuring the recent ESPN “Outside the Lines” special discussion of a proposed NFL rule to penalize the n-word, Twitter erupted in critique, criticism, and debate. A person with glasses and a polo shirt holds their palm up toward the camera.