May I please make a mild aside to notate something that is unfortunately all too rare on these boards - a person who is intellectually honest enough to respond and acknowledge when someone documents that they were mistaken. All too often people dig in (and just look idiotic for doing so) or just disappear, rather to admit that they had been mistaken. Well done and a breath of fresh air.
In the past on this board I’ve gotten the feeling that there are posters who get a sick little thrill from repeatedly saying “nigger” in the course of a thread (or threads). Maybe they tell themselves they’re just liberated from tight-assed social conventions and/or that they’re so equality-minded that no one could ever read anything bad into what they’re saying.
If so they’re fooling themselves.
On the other hand I get the feeling that there are posters who simply apply the label “racist” to put down another poster that they don’t like and/or suggest “I am not a racist because I am an ant-racist and therefore I am a good guy and I’m a better person than the racist I just labelled”
Let me see… There is a word that is historically being used as a part of subjugation and enslavement of the worst kind and the people that the word has been directed at continue to use it - as apparently they understand the nuances of it’s use at a very early age.
As a person who was at the end some of ethnic insults I cannot comprehend why would the group mentioned above continue to use the word? The way I see it, not only it shows lack of self-respect but also, it serves as an eternal reminder of the separation and differnce long after majority of people actually no longer harbor the feelings and attitudes from the times the word originated.
I just don’t have any respect for person who says he/she can use it as they “understand” usage difference.
Even tho I never used the word nor am I ever in a situation that would justify the use nor am I ever around others who use it, I still find it extremely annoying for someone to lecture me on it’s use. Especially if your only qualification is the colour of your skin.
My take, at least here in Canada, is that this country is filled with people that faced some kind of irrational persecution or simply hatred and to make one group special over another is just silly and counter productive.
It’s weird - the South African equivalent of nigger, kaffir, has almost completely disappeared from use. Sure, some ultra-right racist whites retain daily use of it, and it slips out of others in public to great amusement of the press, but it’s certainly never had more than a few half-hearted, stumbling attempts at being “reclaimed” by musicians courting easy controversy, few of which went down well at all. Mostly, I encounter it in movies where the villains are South African (Lethal Weapon 2) or the like.
No doubt, it helps that Blacks are the victorious majority here. Having already reclaimed the country, they don’t really need the oppressed’s usual subaltern language.
And that the word itself is considered actionable hate speech.
[sidebar] While you are here, I once was called a Yannie because I was Dutch by an English South African ex-patriate who I didn’t get along with and freely gave me his negative opinion of the Afrikaaners.. He was someone who introduced me to the word “kaffir” as well. Perhaps the most ugly racist individual I ever met . Introduced me to the word “split-tail” as well.
It is the one and only time I’ve heard the expression “Yannie”, and I can understand the motivation for it as similar to the origin for “Yankee” based on the common first name “Jan”. However all my searches to confirm the use of the term have failed me. Is it used and/or still used?[/sidebar]
I wonder how Schlessinger (who has apologized but you know damned good and well doesn’t mean it) would feel if the caller had delivered several antisemitic epithets in a row. (Schlessinger is a “born again Jew”, which is to say some years ago she went from a non-religious/non-practicing person of Jewish ancestry to a very observant [and of course narcissistically preachy] practitioner.)
[minirant hijack]I’m always irked by her being identified as Dr. Laura. She has a Ph.D. in biology, and while that’s not a gimme degree and it’s worth being proud of and quite right for somebody to want to be called “Dr.” for possessing in an academic environment it has jack to do with her call-in show. Neither Ken Jeong (Señor Chang from Community and Mr. Chow from Hangover) or Matt Iseman (“go-to-guy” from Clean Sweep and a stand up comic) insist on having their names preceded by Dr. or followed by M.D. in the credits.[/minirant hijack]
I really don’t think there’s any easy answer to this question, other than ‘‘context, context, context.’’ I mostly agree with Dio in that there are times where it may be appropriate and there are times where it’s not. Everybody has their own threshold of comfort as far as that’s concerned, and I think it’s problematic to accuse someone of being ‘‘juvenile’’ because they avoid using a highly offensive, shocking word associated with some of the very worst acts humanity has ever perpetrated.
I never used the word at all until my anti-racism training sequence last year. I was raised to believe that good people don’t use that language ever. The professor on the very first day was talking about how we have to get past our emotional reactions in order to truly address the problem of racism in U.S. society.
He walked up to a black girl in the middle of his lecture and said, very loudly, ‘‘What are you going to say if someone calls you a nigger bitch?’’ Then he turned to a white girl and said, ‘‘What if someone calls you a white bitch? What are you going to say?’’
It was shocking. This is a shocking word for many people, and for a lot of us in that class there was just bewildered silence. He made his point. He made us all sit, black and white alike, with that discomfort and anxiety and guilt and anger and confusion, he forced us to feel it and deal with it and move past it.
And we did. There were some tense moments in that class, but we talked through them. As we moved forward, while I don’t particularly recall using that word, it was used periodically, as we were talking about racism. I am now mostly comfortable using it in an academic context at home with my husband, and I obviously just used it once in this post to try to recreate my own shock at hearing it, but I don’t just throw it around willy-nilly either.
It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that my professor was black. Among all the other things he taught me, he taught me the respectful and effective use of that word. He maybe used it 3 or 4 times in an entire year, but when he did use it, he did it with deliberate and specific intention. There was never a time he used it that it wasn’t absolutely necessary within context. When and if I do use it, I strive to be that exacting and deliberate and respectful.
To carry this a little further, isn’t it actually considered a kind of academic fraud, or at least unethical, to use the title in the context of a field different from the field the degree is in?
I found Dr. Laura fascinating for a while and bought into her frequent insistence that children be made the priority when their parents were fussing about choices. But the preaching grew to seem like the kind of wisdom everybody gets by turning old, mixed with some intolerance and arrogance. Then there was the bit about the nude photos on the web. No problem that she posed for them - but that she at first lied about them and only came clean when she had to was an unforgivable hypocracy.
Would there be any way we could leverage our collective disdain for Dr. Laura into some kind of consensus and agreement? Maybe a group hug, too?
To all those who long for the day that they and other white people be allowed to say “nigger” without inviting the oppression of a raised eyebrow or, God forbid, a finger wag, I’m assuming that in your world, “kike”, “wetback”, “chink”, “dyke”, “fag”, and “camel jockey” are different in that they are celebrated terms that can be screamed into the heavens with nary a head shake or frowny face. No?
“Nigger” is not all that different than any other racial slur. The only noteworthy thing is the number people out there with burning desires to say it. Because they are thinking it all the time.
Well-intentioned people say the “n-word” because of self-imposed pressure, not because people actually get crucified for saying nigger in an academic sense. It’s the same anxiety at work when people avoid saying “Jew” and use “Jewish person” instead. “Jew” sounds wrong coming out of my mouth so I self-censor to use the latter phrase. Racists are associated with saying nigger, antisemites are associated with saying Jew, so it’s only natural that non-racists and non-antisemites will go out of their way to avoid the language of those bigots. Oh, the humanity, right?
I have no hangups about using “nigger” in a context appropriate way, probably because I’m black and not afraid of looking like a Klan member. But I’m certainly not going to cry over the fact that others do have that hangup. As long as they don’t blame that hangup on me and other black people (which sadly, many people do…introspection is not widely practiced, I’ve noticed), it’s not an issue worth arguing about.
Oh, they’re coming. Just you wait.
This is an anonymous board. If they knew who you were ,you might not be so comfortable.
Yes I would. I haven’t used it in any way that’s inappropriate.
It’s not your perception of how you used the word that matters.
I am sorry but I think you are wrong.
The people who think that all the time are the same people who also think most of those other epithets “all the time”. The difference is that “nigger” was, from a historic POV, recently strongly associated with violent oppression in America. “Kike” less so - violence against Jews, sure, but not so much in America asociated with that word as other hateful words elsewhere in the world. “Fag” - yeah gay bashing, but not as strongly associated with the violence, “dyke” also does not have the violent oppression associated with it, nor does “wetback”. (“Chink” few use, nor “camel jockey”.) I think that this particular word is different because it implies more violent oppression, images of crosses burning while people are lynched, not because there are so many more burning to say it than are happy to say “kike” or “fag” (or “fag kike commie librul”) when among those who they assume are of similar mind.
Whose perception does?
This thread baffles me.
The reason some white people want to say the word -and the reason the N-word is different from all other racial slurs - is because it appears in popular culture.
Blacks make up 12% of the population. If a rap artist is at the top of the charts it isn’t because of his black fans. Yet popular rappers use the word all the time when they know most of their fans are white. The song “Gold Digger” by Kanye West has the N-word in the chorus. The lyrics were changed for the radio version, but all of Kanye’s fans would know the actual lyrics.
Pop stars make culture. Part of our economy runs on people copying their favorite music artists. It’s only natural that Kanye’s white fans would want to be like him and say the N-word. The desire to say the word might be misguided, but for a lot of people it’s not driven by racism.
Jsgoddess, the perception of the people who hear Dio say the word.
Well, okay. That’s a bit of a truism that we and our audience together decide what things mean. But I think some of the people in this thread have a bit of a persecution complex which makes them believe that they can’t say the word “nigger” in a discussion without being called a racist. My experiences on this board in in life belie that assertion. I don’t know if you’re making a point about the meaning of words or are specifically arguing in favor of the assertion.
No, the person who originates the statement is the only one who knows the meaning of what she or he is saying. It is true that the message intended is not always the message received. That can be because of a poorly worded sentence to begin with or a closed and arrogant mind on the other end or careless reading or any number of things.
My experience on this board has been that a few people have been very quick to judge my motives and intentions and have run wild with accusations based on their own assumptions about me. One person assumed that I was exaggerating about forgetting the “races” of my students and relating to their personalities instead. It isn’t hard to do when 80% or 90% of your students are of one “race.” It just isn’t an issue. And it isn’t hard to do when you are close to your students. I feel sure that other teachers experience this all the time. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?
I understand that “the word” is not “the thing.” And “the n-word” sounds juvenile to me. But most of the time I will use it to avoid offending people. And I just don’t like saying the other word. I have used it in discussing the word itself, but it doesn’t feel comfortable. That is just too ingrained.
I don’t think the historical violence has much to do with it. Historical violence between ethnic groups is not exactly uncommon.
It is the horrible truth of the utter contempt for the black person’s humanity that once existed as a matter of fact which makes the word “nigger” especially offensive to the human race.