In the same circumstances, I would have said “Mr. Nigger,” but that clarifies matters.
No rappers use “nigger” as a matter of fact discriptor. In fact, I’ve never heard a single black person call another black person nigger before. Nigga yes, but they aren’t remotely close.
This is nonsense. They are just different pronunciations of the same word.
I am actually not certain this is true. Nigga originates in this way, of course. But in writing, anyway, I never have seen the letter R used in this word in this kind of context. Nigga may have broken away to become it’s own word.
Maybe it’s the niggardly use of "R"s.
It may be regarded as having a different usage or meaning in some cultural groups, but that is far from generally accepted. I think most people in the US would regard them as being the same word and equally offensive. To say they “are not remotely close” is absurd.
The word is not found in the online Merriam-Webster (but apparently is listed in the unabridged version, which I don’t have access to.) The Free Dictionary regards the two spellings as synonymous.
From Wiki:
What, pray tell, does that have to do with anything?
It pretty well means that it was NOT a polite term BEFORE “negro” was, which is what Frylock related from the facebook fools and what Nava showed to be nonsensical.
I’m sorry, I just don’t see the point of your post relative to what you responded to.
Well, is it better, um, yeah it is. It’s still a form of racism, a form that still exists today and will always exist. But is it better to live next to people who may not want to invite you over for tea as opposed to people who will beat you to death for glancing at their daughter? There’s degrees of everything and tolerance of differences is most certainly one of them. As a great episode of South Park pointed out a few years ago the word ‘tolerance’ itself means exactly that, to tolerate. Not to 100% wholeheartedly and unhesitatingly embrace. It is great the closer people get to that end of things but it is NOT all or nothing.
To my ears it even sounds that in “I Have A Dream” MLK pronounces it more like nigro (short I sound) when referring to “negro” people. Regional accent, but easy to see where the words are related. IIRC in Canada, from my exposure to the media in the 60’s, both coloured and negro were acceptable terms, but nigger was always a very serious insult. However, I don’t recall any discussion over Huckleberry Finn. I think by grade 10 everyone understood “things were different back then.”
Its logic 101. The fact an unpolite term derives from a polite term means nothing (well little) about the unpolite term. It does not somehow prove the unpolite term is unpolite because it came from the more polite one. What kinda meaningless logic is that?
Now if you want to argue that negro was NEVER a more polite form to start with (at least in certain circles), that’s a different kettle of fish.
I am going off of decades old memories here and I would never claim I had the pulse on American culture, but I do seem to recall some folks of a certain persuasion being preferred to be called negro rather than black (and Africian American had not taken off yet).
Oh, wait, what’s the name of that college fund? Oh, yeah. The United NEGRO College Fund.
Did anyone here read Gone With the Wind? The term was an everyday word.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that it wasn’t an everyday word in certain circles at a certain time. The question is was it ever respectful? That, and I quote: “in the fifties and sixties, many black people demanded to be called ‘nigger’ as a term of respect.” That just sounds nuts.
“Gone with the Wind” was written in the 1920s imagining how people in the Civil War era might have talked.
If you want to know how they actually spoke, we have tons of primary sources, and I think on the balance they indicate that even in the south, “nigger” was a low-class disrespectful word. I think objections to its use by middle class whites, especially women or men in mixed company, was that it made the speaker look trashy, not that it was hurtful to negros, but it was still not a nice word. African Americans of the day did not casually refer to black people as niggers. Sorjourner Truthsays “Negro” in a speech where “nigger” would have worked quite well, if it was an ordinary, everyday word. And even if she did say “nigger” (because it was a transcribed speech) the transcriber preferred “negro”, which creates the same implication.
“Nigger” has never been a polite term. It may have been more common, but it wasn’t polite, and certainly not respectful.
I grew up in 40s in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where my father was posted as an army officer.
We were surrounded by native Africans from many tribes but they were never, to my recollection, described as ‘niggers’. I read Enid Blyton’s book ‘Ten little niggers’ and used the eeny meeny miny moe rhyme to choose sides, but I at least, never associated it with the black and brown people I saw every day.
The local population were referred to as ‘natives’ and addressed by name, mostly. I clearly remember my older sister getting into trouble for shouting ‘Boy’ when she wanted our houseboy - he was Mohammed, and an employee. (And not a young girl’s personal servant).
We’re in an apples/oranges thing here. No one is claiming the unpolite term is unpolite because it came from the more polite one, nor that “negro” was not polite. Nava (if I understand her correctly) and I are talking about the timing/history of “nigger” vis-a-vis “negro” relative to this: “Part of the claim they were making was that nigger was the polite term before negro was” (underlining mine). Our point is that “nigger” could not have been a polite term – or any kind of term – BEFORE “negro” was because the term “nigger” didn’t even exist before the term “negro.” As you say, Logic 101, but looking at a different aspect from what you appear to be addressing.
Two anecdotes from literature -
[ul][li]In Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End, after the aliens arrive, “ngger" has become the commonly accepted term for black people. It didn’t sound plausible to me either.[/li][li]In C.S.Forrester’s excellent novel The General, there is a brief aside where someone refers to a candidate for a promotion by saying "works like a ngger, and plenty of brains”. This is the only example I have encountered in which the term is used as part of a compliment, and it is not addressed to, or in the presence of, any black people. [/ul]I have heard the term used semi-descriptively. My late grandmother told use that, in her youth, she referred to Brazil nuts as “ngger toes" and to the balcony in movie theaters as "ngger heaven”. But she recognized, later, that this was offensive, and AFAIK no black person ever requested to be addressed as “n*gger” - first it was Negro, then colored, then Afro-American, then black, then African American.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Heck, I grew up in the 80s and I’ve heard them referred to as “nigger toes,” too, and was familiar with the “catch a nigger by his toe” version of “Eeny Meeny Meinie Moe.”
I agree with Napier. I recently read all of Twains novels (a well-spent $2.50, gotta love e-readers) and just finished “Roughing It” one of his first major pieces. In the novels, he’s pretty consistent, “nigger” is nearly always used by someone who is (often unconsciously) denegrating black people.
More interestingly, in “Roughing It”, he uses the word quite unconsiously, reflecting the mores of the times, and generally, showing how little regard was held (by both society and himself) for the lives and hardships of blacks. It seems to me that between then (1871) and Tom Sawyer (1876) and especially Huck Finn (1884) he became acutely aware of the social condition of blacks and the inhumanity of their treatment.
I’m from an upper-middle-class family in a rather segregated city, but spent a lot of time from ages 6 through 13 at the local YCMA, where I swam and played pool with a lot of kids from (literally) the other side of the river. This was in the 60’s. No evidence of anyone ever using the term as a mark of respect, or demanding it, that I can recall. I think I would have remembered it.
[quote=“Shodan, post:76, topic:662135”]
Two anecdotes from literature -
[ul][li]In Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End, after the aliens arrive, “ngger" has become the commonly accepted term for black people. It didn’t sound plausible to me either.[/li][li]In C.S.Forrester’s excellent novel The General, there is a brief aside where someone refers to a candidate for a promotion by saying "works like a ngger, and plenty of brains”. This is the only example I have encountered in which the term is used as part of a compliment, and it is not addressed to, or in the presence of, any black people. [/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Both of those examples are from British authors and either during or soon after the British colonial period, so they could be considered a separate issue from American use of the word.
I never read the book, but I do know that the filmmakers specifically agreed to not include the word nigger anywhere in the movie. I don’t know if it was a one-to-one replacement but they do use the term “darkies” several times. Personally I find darkies to be so ridiculously ole’ timey and quaint as to be funny in an obviously politically incorrect way. Several Monty Python sketches used it effectively.