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The problem is that it was used by white folks as an oppressive word.
See, when you look at history and how the word was used before to demean and insult black folks, you'd see why it looks bad for a white person to use it.
Blacks took the word away, used it as a way to acknolage one another and changed the meaning. They confiscated the word. They took the verbal weapon away. I mean think of what a white racist in the 50s would think if you told him later generations would be AFRAID to use the word. Imagine you'd take him forward in time and show him how bad it would look to use it today? For him to know that his one tool of oppression was completely flipped? The rabbit has the gun now.
It's weird when white folks complain about not being able to use it. "I'm not racist but". Like why do you care? Just don't use it.
Perhaps it should not be taken to the offensive level that it's taken when white folks use it sometimes. But it's cringe worthy because it's out of place.
Funny thing though, is I got one white friend and around all my other black friends he'd casually use the word and it was no big deal to them. Guess it depends on how well you know the person. But I don't think it would slide with anyone else.
Even after appropriating the word, there is still a double standard that a White person have the race card pulled against them for using it but a Black person might get a pass.
Even after appropriating the word, there is still a double standard that a White person have the race card pulled against them for using it but a Black person might get a pass.
All we have to do is erase a couple of centuries' worth of cultural context, and what you typed will make perfect sense. But we can't, so...
In the same manner that Jews can make jokes about being stingy and argumentative, while non-Jews really shouldn't. Or women can make PMS jokes, while men should probably abstain.
White people using the N-word, non-Jews making Jewish jokes or women being demeaned for their biological make-up are all phenomena that arrive with centuries' worth of baggage of actual, manifest prejudice and oppression. So just don't, and stop being so damn whiny about it.
The consequences of context. The word has racial connotations, and those connotations are different for white people and black people, whether we choose to accept that or not. It’s about personal responsibility.
Is this similar to if a white person shoots a black person in FL it's bad, but if a black person shoots a black person in Chicago it's OK and BLM just ignores it?
Regardless of what BLM does or does not ignore, the reality is, in neighborhoods and cities across America, there are countless organizations, activists and movements dedicated to curbing violence in black communities. The number of “Stop the Violence” marches dwarfs the demonstrations against police brutality. Unity rallies and peace picnics happen every day. Scared Straight programs for at-risk youths, gang counseling, neighborhood watches, intervention specialists, youth counselors, and too many other people and groups to name all lead the charge against crime and violence.
But those efforts don’t make the evening news because they aren’t as salacious as people blocking traffic and protesting; nor do they serve the preconceived white confirmation bias. Besides, there’s no way white people would know about this unless they stopped deflecting with trite questions and instead actually went into a minority neighborhood to selflessly join the effort to address the problems plaguing inner city communities.
Seriously, who cares? Is that a regular part of your vocabulary or something? If people find it offensive, it shouldn't be that difficult not to use it. It's like the difference between you criticizing members of your family and others doing it.
And if you really feel you're missing out in life by not being given a pass to use it, you have some deeper things to think about than this.
Six-figures worth of words to choose from in the English lexicon necessarily means that the N-word can be easily avoided, even if in principle (and in practice) it ought to be considered universally unacceptable both regardless of the pigmentation of the individual(s) uttering it and regardless of any context outside of historical discussion or private conversation.
I wouldn't support a legislative action against its usage, nor would I support its usage as justification for violent reprisal. The former action is inherently authoritarian and the latter action represents a legal abdication of personal responsibility.
That is a word of degredation. People should not use it in public especially as a cavalier way to express an affectionate name for your freind, i mean when the black people use it that way.
Even if you as a black person use it as a friendly affectoniate nickname, you are calling your beloved friend a name of degredation. Is that how you think of your friend? A name that, not too long ago, was used to put down people in such horrid ways? You were considered the lowest worst dirt by calling someone that. so why do it? Why give honor to it? Not too long ago, it was a word to be avoided, the word that slaves were called. People rose up to leave slavery; why put people back in that category?
So, some will disagree with me, but just like people with their pants hanging low is a degrading thing (first used in men's jail as a signal to give that person anal sex).. so again, people just words of degredation and actions of degredation not realizing how nasty it is.
In light of so many white people getting into trouble for uttering the n-word, what if black people who use the n-word faced consequences too?
I hear that damn word EVERY weekday while on the Los Angeles Metro. It's never white people saying it in public, it's black people. Mostly men, but some women. Frequently. LOUDLY. Often with enthusiasm, anger, or extra "stank."
It's said in front of children, the elderly, and all races.
Non-black people lose their jobs and reputations over the n-word but it is tossed around so much I wonder what would happen if there weren't a double standard.
What if EVERYONE who says the n-word was held accountable?
I agree with you, but it’s an argument that’s not worth having because when black people say it, “it has a different meaning.” That’s the argument many (not all) of them make, and you will never change their opinion/mentality on this.
What they don’t realize is that by them continuing to say it all the time casually and “with a different meaning,” is that the word continues to live on and is so publicized and in people’s minds, that people of all races will continue to say it.
I don’t like the word and don’t think anyone should say it, so that the word will die off, but as I mentioned, there are too many black people who will continue to argue that “it has a different meaning” when they use it, so I’ve learned you just have to accept that and consequently accept that it will always be the most controversial word that exists in the the English language.
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