In South Africa, the equivalent of *nigger *is kaffir. It is, no question, the worst thing you can call a black person.
Township blacks do not greet each other with “hey, my kaffir”, there is no group called “Kaffirs With Attitude”. Post-apartheid, it pitched up in a couple hip-hop songs, but nowhere like the US nigger. It is recognized by the govt. as fighting words, by the labour laws as insta-dismissal talk.
I’ve always wondered why that is. My best guess is that most SA blacks natively speak a non-Afrikaans language, and therefore have other routes to take for self-affirming inspeak. Most US blacks do not have that option (just like gays). They are forced to use the language of the oppresor, in which case inversion of meaning becomes a viable route of self-affirmation and group identity. Does that sound about right, or is there a better thesis?
I had an odd experience a few years ago. One of my students came to me- urban, black, 12 years old- because she’d gotten into an argument with a friend that they needed me to settle. Her friend insisted that some people use “nigger” as a racist insult… my student thought that was absurd, and she’d certainly never heard it used that way.
However, I rather like the idea of words being verboten, declasse and shunned by convention, tradition and prevailing mores of a particular culture or prevailing mainstream society.
On another thread, I noted that, in North Americas, “nigger” was once a general racial descriptor of all black people that everyone used, that became more and more insulting, profane, hateful and obscene as centuries went on. Today it’s a slur. Nigger and nigga are considered verboten to non-blacks.
I don’t believe kaffir ever went through a period where it was considered a general descriptor of all blacks in South Africa, since the oppressors were a minority who devised the slur on the same continent where the blacks had, as you said, their own languages, cultures and traditions and never embraced kaffir as a self-descriptor. They never needed to. So kaffir was always seen as an outsider’s racist term.
So I think the benefit of being in a population majority and having largely intact cultures, including language, enabled South African blacks to retain self-affirming tribal identities and kept kaffer from being an African version of nigger.
Here’s a thought: had the indigenous peoples of the Americas not had the immense, decimating population losses due to disease introduced by the conquistadors and had their cultures similarly decimated and forcibly assimulated, would the masses of their descendants have accepted the label “Indian?”
Nitpick: We-ee-ell, I don’t know about “like any word.” Most words have a clear consensus they are okay or not okay to be used. I mean “nigger” and “nigga” have their defendants and detractors, but I hardly hear anyone in the black community championing and condoning the use of other black slurs and older descriptive racial terms like mulatto, octaroon, mammy, shine, pickaninny, tarbaby, burr-head, cottonpicker, spearchunker, etc.
Roger again. My reading of the OP did not indicate a call for banishing the word; merely a question as to whether its use should be stopped, presumably by personal choice rather than proscription.
Um, no, we can’t stop blaming them. They make millions of dollars off of the unthinking, lemmingesque fans who immitate everything they do. Furthermore, I’d argue that yes, celebrities are a cause. The current rage of long, floppy basketball uniforms (not a bad thing, just case in point) took off after Michael Jordan asked that his uniform pants be cut longer so he could wear his good-luck college pants under them. And gangsta rappers don’t use the “N” word to “resonate” with their audience – they do it to show off to each other, giving not a single thought to the fact that hundreds of thousands of street kids mimic their every move, accent, look and word. Yes, it’s a vicious cycle, and FittyCent or whatever the hell he calls himself is as guilty of perpetuating it as any cool kid on any block.
I’m going in the other direction. I think we should revive the term “nigger” to mean “willfully subhuman.” I don’t care what your epidermal melanin levels are, if you insist on behaving like a baboon with a gun, you are now a nigger.
Really? If you saw a white guy waving a gun around you’d say “look at that damn nigger?” In public? If the dude was black would you call him a nigger? Would you say to the shocked people around you “It’s ok, I call dumbass white guys ‘nigger’ too” and expect that they’d be placated?
Even Humpty-Dumpty can’t really change words to mean what he thinks they should mean. Nigger is a pejorative against Blacks, not willfull idiots. If I decided that “nigger” meant “cats” and started a thread in MPSIMS called “Let’s post pictures of our niggers” I doubt it would go over well.
Well, they make millions of dollars because people like their music and lyrics. If there was any inkling in their minds that more people would buy their music if they didn’t use “nigga”, that word would be as obsolete as “23 skidoo”. It’s like blaming McDonald’s for selling fatty food. If McDonald’s doesn’t sell it, Burger King will. If you are in the fast food business, you sell fatty food because that’s what people are buying. If Fifty Cent didn’t say “nigga” a lot, maybe Dr Dre or somebody would get all the money currently going into Fifty Cent’s bankroll. What I’m saying is that if it wasn’t the current crop of “nigga”-saying rappers, it would be another, different crop doing they same thing. Why? Because that is what the buying public is paying for. So if you have a problem with that word, blame that same buying public. Not the product they are buying.
The problem with devisive or pejorative words or names will only be solved when people stop thinking them. you can ban the usage but the opinion, however misguided or evil in intent will remain. A vast part of every language is geared towards labelling, be it tribal, social, political or even historical. As with any other tool it can be used for good or ill. The need to be identified (which probably exists on a genetic level) is within all of us but until we learn that the only race on this planet is the human race and move on then the cycle will continue. Just to add to that (are you ready for this?) there are no black people or white people, we’re all brown people in a multitude of delightful shades. Profound or naive? You tell me.
I don’t use it, I won’t use it and I don’t like it being used. I am a champion of free speech. You are free to use it to your hearts content, justify it whichever way you justify it and I am free to have that form an opionon about you to me.
That being said, I would like to stand up to the Tar Baby. I grew up with Uncle Remus stories and was shocked in later years to find out folks considered it perjorative. And yes, I tend to use other phrases from the books like “Please don’t throw me in the Briar Patch.”
I am not a big fan of taking things offensively when no offense is meant (Re: Ma’am, Sir, Oriental, pointing with one finger, other politically correct crap that is too numerous to mention) However, the N-word IS so racially charged I don’t see it ever not being so. I don’t care how many folks say “I’ll call someone of any color that.” Because I have never once, ever in my life, ever heard someone refer to someone who wasn’t black as that that wasn’t joking around. Sorry. It doesn’t fly.
Oh, I’ll call bullshit on the mother that accidentally gave her baby a bottle full of vodka while I’m at it.
I don’t like it when women call other women bitches either.
I noticed two separate actions and calls in the linked article in the OP:
Black leaders called for people, especially black entertainers, to stop using the word;
Jesse jackson, in his inimitable fashion, went one step further and called on the corporations that produce entertainment media to banish (censor) the word.
I think that the first point is one that should be embraced and furthered by everyone.
I think that the second point is misguided.
I do not think that we should have laws (or even boycotts) to compel people to use or avoid certain words. It gives those words a power out of all proportion to their actual strength. (And censorship is, like, y’know, bad.)
On the other hand, I think that a certain amount of social pressure to discontinue acts that cause excessive ill will is generally a good thing. As seen in this very thread, there is no current consensus regarding who may or may not use the word in many different contexts. This confusion is going to lead clueless white high school basketball coaches to call their players “nigga” and then be simply astounded when they are challenged (or lose their jobs). It will cause hurt and confusion even among blacks who use it.
No one in their right mind, today, (or, probably, out of it), would use the word “darky” in public in the U.S. This is not because we have any laws against it or style books among broadcasters and publishers forbidding it, but simply because everyone recognizes that it is an incredibly stupid expression. This is the goal that is intended by the majority of the group who called on black entertainers to refrain from using the word “nigger.” Jackson, as happens from time to time, goes further in calling for a more active suppression. I suspect that if the media followed him on this, it would backfire–because there is always a number of people in the U.S. who have an immediate urge to challenge censorship.
But the media self-polices itself quite thoroughly and broadly, esp. with politically correct terminology (though it should be said that censorship is by definition a government thing), the tortured syntax and studied ambiguity indicate to the reader that no expense is spared at avoiding certain words or key elements in a story. It takes hard work, and presumably numerous revision, to write that badly.
The ever tiresome and odious Rosie O’donnell, (alleged comedienne here in the US) provided what was purported to be an apology for insensitive remarks by saying she “had no intent” to insult. This is laughable, because it is unthinkable that any adult today could not understand that intent no longer has any bearing whatsoever today with respect to politically correct terminology.
