Is it time to quit saying nigger/nigga?

Great Debates
1

Jesse Jackson, although I’m sure he isn’t the first guy to do this, has called upon black celebrities to stop saying nigger or nigga. This comes, of course, in the wake of the Michael Richards meltdown - Kramergate, if you will. ESPN columnist LZ Granderson, in a column I found very thought-provoking, went one step further and proposed everybody stop saying it.

Is this the way to go? Nobody would be harmed if people stopped using “nigga” in a friendly way, but somehow I still don’t like the idea. Perhaps it’s because Jackson is singling out this one hateful word; or perhaps it’s because I object to this idea of “nigger” as The Word Which Must Not Be Said, which has to be called “the n-word” even in news articles. I don’t think that solves any problems, and I don’t like the self-censorship. I’d never call anyone a nigger, but somehow I have mixed feelings about this. Granderson is very much correct about the double-standard, but so what? Words mean different things coming from different people.

Meanwhile, comedians are debating whether or not they can say the word, even in jokes - I know I don’t like that, because I think society needs to be able to joke about anything. I certainly have a lot of respect for Paul Mooney and Richard Pryor, though.

I’m not trying to start a thread saying “black people should do THIS,” because I just can’t muster the presumption. But are Jackson and Granderson on the right track?

2

I stopped saying it a long time ago. It was easier than quitting cigarettes.

3

Is it time to quit saying nigger/nigga?
Yes.

4

Society seems to need a Word Which Cannot Be Spoken. Better it be a hateful racial slur than a vulgar word for sex.

5

I don’t get this.

Racists were saying “nigger” long before the advent of the colloquial “nigga”/“nigger” term that is commonly used by black urbanites to mean “friend or dude (who usually happens to be black)”. Either though I’m not a lover of nigger or its slang derivatives, I don’t see what the use of one has to do with the other.

There was no question what meaning Richards was going for when he used nigger on stage that night. He was using it in the 1960’s “know thy place or be lyched, negro” sense. I seriously doubt he was mimicking the hip hop community when he said those things. That word bears no resemblance to David Chappelle’s use of the word “nigga” expect phonetically.

I don’t think it would be a bad thing if people stopped saying “nigga”, because 1) it sounds ridiculously ignorant given its origin and 2) it’s a word that non-blacks will never be able to say as freely as blacks because it so easy to take the wrong way even if all the proper context clues are in place. But to relate this in some way to the Richards blowup is misleading. They are apple and orange issues.

6

Ban the N word

7

How so?

8

Ever accept an insult from your friends that would really bother you if somebody else said it?

9

But to add…

I do think there’s a difference between “nigga” as in “My nigga David went to the Harvard and graduate cum laude” and “nigga” as in “There are black folks and then there are niggas” to channel Chris Rock.

Setting up dichotomies like the latter do bother me because they reenforce the idea that black people are indeed lowly animals, just not all black people. I think there is self-hatred driving black people to label other blacks that way, and I think that should be challenged.

For the record, I heard that Chris Rock has expressed regret for doing that nigger/black folk joke. Not surprisingly, some ignorant fools seem to take that joke as permission to go calling folks niggers and it bothers him now. To that, all I can say is that he should’ve seen that inevitability coming from a mile away, but oh well. It was a funny joke, anyway.

10

What’s happened to the hoopla surrounding “Huckleberry Finn?” Are we supposed to mentally blank out the dreaded N-word if and when we encounter it in written form? For better of worse, its a word that has found its way into the language and we cannot prevent its use by fiat. If people would stop reacting to the word with such horror, we would have better luck in getting people to stop using it.

11

Yes - that makes sense. Another example would be how employees at a company will trash their employer up and down to their fellow employees, but it’s time to circle the wagons if an outsider does so. Still, the statement “words mean different things coming from different people” is vanishingly close to asserting that words don’t really have any meaning, or they are infinitely malleable, or even fungible. It’s a real problem today especially, with a lot of ambiguous, fuzzy platitudes that masquerade as language. I think Jackson did the right thing from that standpoint.

12

I write for a living, so I’d be the last person to say they have no meaning. I’m just stating the obvious: context matters. Words are extremely malleable, and so is language itself.

13

I don’t think the jackasses who quote this joke as permission to say “nigga/er” were waiting for Chris Rock, or anyone else for that matter, to give them the thumbs up for this. Can you imagine?

“Well, I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the word… but now our savior Rock has come forth from Calvary with permission. Game on!”

Sad thing is, I’ve heard White people make that comment for years… way before Rock made the joke. They might have used “nigra” instead, but I get it fine.

Back to the OP. I don’t believe in telling people what words to use. I’m over the age of 10 so I understand that simply because a gay man calls another gay man “fag,” or a woman calls another woman “bitch,” that it means that it’s okay for me to do so. I can say what I want, but I also need to be willing to pay the consequences for doing so: other people thinking I’m a bigot, getting punched in the mouth, or being called to the carpet for my poor judgment.

One of my favorite examples comes from Curb Your Enthusiasm, the episode “Krazy-Eye Killa.” It’s funny as hell, so rent the third season DVD if you haven’t seen it. To summarize, Larry befriends a rapper, Krazy Eye Killa. They hit it off, and K.E. Killa says to Larry, “Are you my nigga?” To which Larry responds, “I am your Caucasian.” Later Mr. Killa asks Larry again, “I thought you were my nigga?” Larry responds, “I am your nigga.” (Or something like that.)

Larry reads the context here quite well. For Killa, it clearly means that they are buddies. He uses it in the same context as him. It doesn’t bother Killa. I really don’t care if you have a clique of buddies that call each other horrible names in private, that’s your affair. I do know that most of us know the difference between private conversations and public ones.

And as we approach the “well, some rappers use it” argument, it would be pretty silly for someone who is rapping about the reality of life on the streets to not use it.

That’s my take. There are as many arguments for the use, or not using the word in the hip-hop community and Black folks writ large as we’ll likely see on this board - so please, let me preempt any “But Black people/rappers/young people say it all the time!” arguments.

14

No word should ever be stopped from being said or banned. Period.

15

My perspective? That’s how Twain wrote it. It should be in the book. When kids ask why, it’s a good time to have a conversation about how “nigger” was used to refer to Black people quite normally at the time, and how it is/was dehumanizing. If the class is reading out loud, the class should come to a mutual decision about how they will approach it.

16

It doesn’t really matter how many online petitions are made or how many celebs vow to stop saying the word. All of that will never stop the populace as a whole from saying the word.

17

Agreed. But should the populace as a whole stop saying it? That’s what I’m really interested in.

Completely true, but hearing a black comedian say it validates the attitude, and makes it seem more acceptable. I think comedians are right to pay attention to that. I was at a party last month, and a few of us ended up discussing reparations for slavery. One woman ended her argument by saying something very close to, “You couldn’t just give them money. They wouldn’t know what to do with it! Did you see that sketch on Chappelle’s Show?” And laughing uproariously at the memory. Chappelle didn’t make her think that black people are ignorant types who would waste thousands of dollars on card games, drugs and bling if given the chance… but hearing that idea from a black man seems to have made her think she was onto something.

18

Should? Maybe. But the hatred will still exist. Another word would take its place every single time. And if you stop one word from being said, what’s the next word to be banned? That’s a big no no for me no matter how vile the word is.

19

I tend to side with some of what ParentalAdvisory said. Should it be in my opinion? No, because I don’t like anyone saying any word should be banned and aside from that it is pointless and accomplishes nothing and is impossible to achieve.

20

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I’ve always thought the modern usage of nigga is kinda cool.

It took a word that was always meant as derogatory and demeaning toward a class of people, and flipped it into an emblem of brotherhood and dare I say it, pride in self.

I’d like to see the same thing happen with fag. And I can say fag because I’m bisexual. :slight_smile: