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What's all in a word?
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Why it Matters |
Interesting viewpoint. Major error: black people did not invent the word nigger. Some black people use it in their everyday language and understand its multiple meanings within the community. Some black people never use it and are always offended when it is said/written. Other black people refrain from saying it in racially mixed company. My point is, there is no consensus among black people on the proper use of the word. However, it is an historical fact that they did not invent it. It was created by Euro-Americans to deny enslaved Africans and their "emancipated" descendants their humanity. It was used to deny black people human rights, the right to vote, the right to own property, a quality, functional education, and the right to roam freely in the U.S. Nigger, when used by nonblack peoople, is a word that represents the psychological trauma, soul murder and literal murder of black people.
The reason nonblack people are policed, shamed, and punished for their use of it is because there was long campaign by black people to make it socially unacceptable. Black people struggled to remove it from its regular use on tv/radio, newspapers and city names. They petitioned and protested to the point that it was censored from classic American novels (see Mark Twain) and sanitized from movies about slavery (and so many other contexts) when it would have been historically correct to have a white person say it as a way to remind the black person of her/his "place."
We as a country need to stop pretending why we don't know why ths particular word carries so much weight. |