The Loaded and Offensive Use of the N-word

Trigger Warning - Whites often have difficulty discussing racism.  This is a well documented reality especially by Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility.  Additionally, racists may find this particularly offensive.  However, please note that this post is not accusing anyone, especially white students, in my classroom of racism.  Instead it is simply explaining the history of racism and the loaded language of the N-word.  If you start to have defensive feelings as you read this, please check yourself.  Remind yourself that this is not about you.  Take a deep breath and try to listen and understand.

This video excerpt is from Ta-Nahisi Coates speaking at Evanston High School.  He explains that language has context.




Pamela Oliver, a professor from UW Madison has made a list of terms that explain the history and nature of racially-based terminology.  Her post is continually updated here.  It is really informative and a recommended read, but below is an excerpt specifically about the "N-word".

“People of color” (often abbreviated POC in certain circles) may sound the same as colored, but has a different history and meaning. It is the political term signifying pan-racial unity among people who are not White and is often used in political or activist circles. While it may seem to some students illogical that two phrases, “colored” and “people of color,” that both refer to people who are not white, should have very different political meanings, this is how language works. A not-Black person using “colored” signifies that one is at best ignorant and probably racist, while a not-Black person using “person of color” signifies that one is a political activist who is trying to respect and form alliances with people of color. (Note that White political activists who use “people of color” or POC may still be criticized for their implicit White supremacy, but the term itself does not signify this. See the discussion of “minority” below for more on pan-racial terms.)
The big insult word is “nigger” and its variant “nigga.” This is the n-word. There are many people who believe I should not write that word even in an informative essay like this one, and I hesitate as I do it. I have written the word on PowerPoint slides (as in “nigger – always an insult”) so people know what we are talking about, but have been persuaded by Black sociologists that there is too much risk that even that pedagogic purpose can be experienced as a micro-aggression by students. I am hoping that in this context, buried in an article that builds up to it, the usage is acceptable. There are many people who view this word as vulgar and unspeakable and offensive. In the United States, it is the most loaded word one can utter, it is the nuclear weapon of racial epithets. There is no other word that comes even close in its explosive power. It is always insulting when said by a non-Black. It is the word that is linked with degradation and violence. It is the word linked to lynching and murder as in “die n-“  It is the word White people use today when they want to wound Black people. A Black woman I know went into the post office in Madison and asked for the Martin Luther King commemorative stamps; the clerk said, “I’m not giving out any of those n- stamps.” That’s how the word is used: to insult somebody as they are going about their daily business, to make them feel like they don’t belong. It ruined her week and made her not want to have anything to do with White people for a while.
There was never a positive or even neutral public use of the word historically. No political movement ever formed around the identity n-. Under slavery and segregation Black people sometimes used the word themselves because they had no other word and you will often see the word used in literary fiction by Black people to convey the culture of a past period. None of that makes the word acceptable by non-Black people in modern usage.
What is confusing to young non-Black people is that they hear Black people using the term often among themselves, especially in rap music, and think they ought to be able to use it. The “rule” here is actually easy: you can insult yourself or your group in ways that others cannot. It is like the rule that I may insult my brother or sister, but if you do it I’m going to punch you.
Students also bring up singing along with rap music. I’ll just say that the context of singing along isn’t the same, although how people experience your choice of music is probably worthy of another conversation I’m not prepared to facilitate. When the topic was brought up, at least one minority student talked about being appalled at groups of White people listening to rap and singing the n-word together.
There is also a phenomenon in which a negative word gets turned positive by a radical or “edgy” movement. This has happened with the word Chicano (to refer to a Mexican American) or the words “dyke,” or “faggot,” insult terms for lesbians and gay men which are sometimes picked up and used by members of the group for radical effect. There are arguments among Black people about whether they should be able to use the n-word for this kind of edgy radical effect. Many Black political writers use the n- word in this way.  I have read things written by Black people on both sides of this debate, some saying that they should be able to use the word and that avoiding it just gives it power, and others saying it just gives White people the idea it is OK to use the word. But these are debates about whether Black people should ever use the word, not debates about whether White people should be allowed to call Black people the n-word.
Non-Black students who have attended majority-Black schools and non-Black athletes on mixed-race teams may talk about context, and the subtleties of using racial insults with each other as a way of declaring friendship across boundaries. What I say about this is, first, yes this does happen, especially among men, and there are some subtle rules about this. Second, lots of times the it is the White people have initiated this; Black people put up with it, even though they don’t like it and feel that it is a microaggression, because they do understand the rules of bonding through insult and don’t want to rock the boat. Third, just because you have one relationship in which you use the n-word appropriately as insult bonding definitely does not give you the permission to go around insulting any other Black people you happen to meet. You do not get any kind of pass at all just because you happen to know a Black person who let you call them n-.
I have also heard some discussion of the difference between n-r and n-a, and all I can say is that this isn’t White folks’ business. If Black people want to make these distinctions, that is their business.
Randall Kennedy’s book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word traces the origins of the word, the history of its usage among Blacks, controversies about it, and how context affects the word. He argues that there are usages among Blacks that are entirely positive. He even argues that there are rare circumstances in which the n-word may be appropriately used by White people, but his examples convinced me that even when such usage is appropriate when you know the context, there will be plenty of people who are offended anyway. For example, there are people who believe the n-word should not be spelled out in this essay, even for the purpose of explaining why not to use it.
If you search the Internet a little, you can find dozens of articles and blog posts mocking White people for whining about not being allowed to say the n-word when Black people can use it. This is viewed as the ultimate example of White privilege in action: White people are so privileged they think there should not be even one word that somebody else can use that they can’t.
There are dozens of other words that have been used historically and in the present to insult Black people that can generally be written without the same level of pain as the n-word but you should assume that if you use them you will be considered a racist, and I cannot imagine any way in which you would use these words except with insulting intent. The ones that come to my mind are shade, spook, darkie, coon, ghetto, jigaboo, welfare queen. I’m sure there are dozens of others. There are also dozens of racist stereotyped images that are considered insulting.

Professor Oliver said above that "It is the word that is linked with degradation and violence."   I want to add that this history of racism includes:

12 million African people forcibly removed from their country and enslaved in the U.S.

2 million African people who died from the horrific conditions of just the journey to the U.S.

The original Constitution which declared that people from Africa were only 3/5 of a person and they were considered property and not people.

There were over 4000 public killings/lynchings of African-American people from 1830-1950.  See the interactive map available here.

This includes the lynching of Emmett Till whose pictures appeared in JET magazine and circulated among the black community in the 1950s.

The Jim Crow laws of the post-slavery era detailed here.

The era of mass-incarceration detailed in Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow and also the subject of Ava Duvernay's documentary 13th.

Ibram Kendi's book, Stamped From the Beginning is an extraordinary work that details the history of racism in the U.S.

All of that is just the history of racism in the U.S.  It doesn't even mention the enormous scholarly work that has researched racism from our current generation.  A quick search of sociology articles about racism on JSTOR reveals 12,572 articles published since the year 2000 about racism.

This includes:
Racism in the criminal justice system and in the prison system.
Racism in medicine.
Racism in politics.
Racism in city planning and policy.
Racism in the media.
Racism in academia.

All of the above is the context behind the N-word.  By using the N-word it displays ignorance at best, but more likely a cold-hearted anger that excuses the centuries of violence and oppression.

Despite all this, some whites were so angered and afraid at the election of a black man for President of the United States that there has been a feeling among whites that somehow they are oppressed.  Michael Tesler explains in his book that rather than the Obama era ushering in a post racial society, the U.S. has actually become more racial as a result of it.  Mostly, this is a misplaced fear because some whites think racism is a zero sum game and so any advances for Americans who are not white means that whites are being oppressed.  Chris Boeskool explains that when you are used to being privileged, equality feels like oppression.

There is a really ignorant notion in some circles about an idea of "black privilege".
This critique explains it.

Some people even post online about why white people feel discriminated against.  Here is an explanation of that.

This NPR story explains that a majority of whites in 2017 believe that whites face discrimination.

Stereotypes against whites are a problem, but as this psychologist explains, they are a problem in creating a barrier in communicating between different groups.  So, like I said at the beginning of this lesson, if you are white like me, check your attitudes.  Realize that when people talk about racism and privilege they are not saying that you did something wrong.  Understand the history.  Don't feel the need to be defensive.

This Harvard extension class looks like a good resource for understanding racism.