No one I know (black or non-black) uses the word. At least, not in front of me, they don’t.
I’ve never heard it used to refer to a white person except for maybe as a joke.
Yes, I still hear 'Knappyhead" being used occasionally to point out a black person.
I must be living in a different world…
When you get close enough to people, particularly white men, and they get comfortable enough around you as ‘one of us buddies’ you mean you guys never hear them utter the word?? That’s where ‘my 50+ percentage of white males’ guesstimate comes from. When people think you are one of them, they feel it’s okay to say it in your presence. My actual guess would be more like 75% of white males.
Even many who would never say it, say it without saying out loud (okay, flame me… this is based on some people I’ve known for long time). Of course not in the presence of a black person or out in public. You never hear witnessed punk kids drive by a black person yelling out the word and throw things like empty cans towards them, ever?? This is totally shocking to me. When Obama won, reaction of quite a few white males I know were “F…ing n…r”. Since once I brought a black co-worker to a friends’ house (from high school), they see me differently as if I’m not quite ‘one of us’ anymore.
I surely must be living in a different America or are you people blocking it out? I can’t change the world and in my real world I’m not surrounded only by people I would choose to surround myself. I can’t just cut out this black hating part out of otherwise normal folks.
Didn’t some tea party folks yell out n-word sometime back?
Oops - I have to learn to read these polls before voting!
I thought you asked what percentage of black men use the n-word, and was going off what I hear in black to black conversations at school.
Change my vote from 30% to zero.
I’m male. I voted none, assuming the context is as a deliberate racial slur. I’ve heard it used as part of a song or movie quote several times.
I only know one guy who would use the word at all, and he’d only use it ironically, to make fun of someone who he sees as racist.
Nope, not a single one.
Voted ‘None’ - but the answer is one person I know, who says ‘nigger’.
He doesn’t say it instead of their name or their pronoun, he says it as part of phrases, like 'Nigger, ple-ase!" and such.
I know lots of people who say ‘n-word’, as they won’t say ‘nigger’.
Which, exactly, do you mean?
“Nigger”
A significant but non-majority (between 25% and 30% ish) of the men I’ve known use the n-word (former guild members, my dad), but I continued to associate with 0% of those men.
A very small percentage of women I’ve known use the n-word (certainly far less than 10%), and I continued to associate with 0% of them.
Does it matter if it’s a person I currently know, or someone I’ve ever known in my entire life? There are a lot fewer people who use the n-word now than where I grew up.
Well, it depends on whether you are defining it in a racial slur context.
I have friends with whom we quote songs in a humourous fashion - show tunes, pop tunes, and rap. There have been times when rap lyrics were quotes that use the word “nigger” or “nigga” depending on how you are using it. Its done in a fun manner, because those are the song lyrics. No slurring was intended, but the words were used.
I have friends who greet me, and whom I greet, with “yo, nigga, whassup?!”, as it is a movie quote. We’ve known each other for quite a long time, and we regularly insult each other, sometimes with use of racial slurs, but we all know we don’t mean anything by it.
If you’re talking simple word usage, then we do it a lot. If you’re talking about usage intended to hurt or insult, then we don’t do it at all.
I meant ‘not in nice context’ towards/regarding black folks.
This reminds me of my old high-school job, my first job ever, in a West Texas restaurant. It was a popular place, and the gimmick was that people would phone in their orders from the table. There was a telephone at each table, and just picking up the receiver would alert the counter that someone was phoning in. Quite a novelty back then.
We were a racially mixed crew, almost all high-school students, and almost all of the black employees were football players. Large football players. There was a dorky little white guy named Brett – I swear this was not me – who sometimes worked the counter. He took the phone orders. When he took an order, he’d write it down on a ticket and then pass it to the cooks while saying, “Order in.”
One evening, the crew mix happened to be Brett at the counter and an all-black crew of cooks. As Blacks are sometimes wont to do when clowning around amongst themselves, they were calling each other “nigger.” Brett, who had not a prejudiced bone in his body – and even if he did, he certainly would not try to antagonize beefy football players, seeing as he made even Woody Allen seem macho – got into the spirit of things by passing the tickets and calling, “Order in, nigger.” The cooks were cool with it, because they’d been throwing the N word around like water, and Brett was considered pretty cool, so no one took offense. They knew he was just trying to join in.
But Brett was a little clueless and did not quite know when to stop. Long after the joke stopped being funny, he was still passing the tickets in and going, “Order in, nigger.” They started telling him, “Uh, look, Brett, that’s okay, you don’t have to do that anymore. Joke’s over. Haha, but joke’s over now.” Brett, who was as clueless as the day was long, and this was summertime, so the days were pretty long, still didn’t get it and kept it up. Finally, one of these large football players cornered Brett in the back and popped him a little. Not hard, just enough to so he’d know it really was time for the joke to end.
Anyway, I ticked “None.” And I really was not Brett, I promise.
I have seen 2 people on MrPanda’s side of the family use that word, but it’s been years – namely since we don’t go around that side much.
I voted none because they’re people I haven’t seen in ages AND compared to the number of non-white men I know overall, the %age is much closer to 0 than it is to 10%.
Ah, kaffir. (Seriously, is it *that *hard to just spell it out?) I am familiar with that word from it’s usage in novels or plays involving South Africans, but in America most people would not have even heard that before.
I think I would remember; it would really startle me.
I remember very clearly, for example when I learned about the fried-chicken/watermelon stereotype (I was in the car, listening to the radio, and one of the DJs said that her husband wouldn’t touch those foods, and it really puzzled me but she explained)–I was about 24 or so. I had never heard of it before.
I also remember the first–and only–time that I heard someone say that a certain black personage sounded very well educated (as in, did not speak in a stereotypical ‘black’ way). It took me several minutes to figure out what she meant, by which time she (and the opportunity to say something) was long gone.
Someone shouting it on the street from a car would be incredibly shocking.
I can identify with the people who have hardly experienced racism - growing up in a lily-white college town in South Dakota, I never witnessed racism or heard people using slurs or talking down about people because of their ethnic background or religion etc, heck I didn’t even understand the *concept *of racism, though I had read about it and my parents had talked with me about it (they grew up in Hawaii where there are lots of racial and class issues).
Once I moved somewhere where more than two black people actually lived and there was long-standing racial tension, it was like a different planet. I’m still not over being shocked at how blatant people are.
I’ve heard it once or twice (read, really), but didn’t know it was a slur.
I know a non-zero % of men who use it. Far less than 10%, but I picked that since it’s more than 0 or 1.
Wow. Apparently you do live in a different America. 75% of white men use the n word around you? Where do you live? I’m going to stay far away. I really don’t know any racists. And if I did, I wouldn’t know them for long.
Wait a minute… My cousin fell for a guy a few years ago that turned out to have a little bit of a racist tendency. Though I never heard him use the ‘n’ word. She dropped him like a hot rock never to see him again.
America; stay away.
Like I said, most of what I hear is between private conversations. But regardless, it is still n-word usage from people who shows zero outward signs that they are racist. I’m speaking of hidden America beneath the facade.