The N-Word

The other day, one of my guy friends came to my room saying “Wassup’ nigga?” Now this is not the first time that this happened. That is his normal way of greeting me and my roommates. I personally do not appreciate being called a “nigga” but I never said anything to him about it. But this particular day I got extremely irritated because he said it several times while he was in the room. My friends noticed my frustration, so after he left we had a long discussion about the word. One of them asked me why did it bother me so much and I was puzzled as to why she asked me that then she went on to say “It’s not like he’s a white person and he called you a  nigger.” This incident sparked this post because I realized that different people look at this word differently and I wanted to share my perspective. 

A little disclaimer: I do not speak for all black people. This is just based on my personal opinion and my life experience.

If you are not a black person and use the n-word, regardless of the ending, whether it is “er” “a”, chances are you are going to face some sort of backlash. Usually, the excuses I’ve encountered on social media or real life starts with “the n-word is not really a racial slur, it doesn’t mean black people, it means stupid.” That is absolutely incorrect. 

The n-word comes from the Spanish and Portuguese word for black –“Negro”. So how do you take a completely benign word, the word for black and make it into a slur? 

You have to look at the word’s historical context. The n-word was used to describe black people as they were being stolen from Africa put into slavery, chained, lynched, raped, beaten, spit upon. The word was created as a tool of oppression. Its historical context cannot be erased. 

Who is allowed to say it? 

In reality, everyone is allowed to say whatever it is the want to say but there are always consequences for your words and your action. Depending on who you are, and where you are, there will be different consequences for what you say and do. This is not only related to the n-word; this is a regular occurrence. It is a matter of in groups and out groups’ dynamics. 

                                                                                                             When you are a member of certain groups, there are things that are totally okay and socially acceptable when you are in that group and for people outside the group, you give them the side eye and it’s just not okay. 




I’ve also encountered this common idea “If you guys don’t want people to say it, then you should stop saying it.”

Personally, I do not use the n-word. I’m also not going to begrudge anyone that use it because you can talk about yourself however you want to. There are some people that use the n-word as a way to reclaim it, almost like an act of defiance. 

The thing that bothers me the most is when people say that “It’s not fair. It’s a double standard that black people can use the n-word and everyone else can’t.” The reason why this bother me so much is because it is self-serving and disingenuous. These people do not care about fairness and the daily struggles of black people. If they did, they not be arguing over the use of the n-word. Instead, they would focus n real problems like job discrimination, racial profiling, police brutality, stop, and frisks, etc.. They would rather argue that it is not fair that there are social consequences for people who are not black and uses the n-word. Priorities. You have them. 

The n-word is not cool and we should never refer to one another using it. It does not matter whether it ends in an –a or an –er. If I could stop black people from using that word, I would but it’s not like we’re all tap into some hotline where I can call and make decisions about what we should all do. What I can do though is not use the word myself with the hope that my surroundings pick up on it and not use it themselves. 

#BlackLivesMatter

The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and too many others have sparked and operated a nationwide outrage that has brought the concern of the destruction of black bodies to more American living rooms than perhaps any time since the civil-rights movement. But while white Americans may be more attentive than ever of the central issues underlying the Black Lives Matter movement, many are still confused about what “black lives matter” actually means.


That misunderstanding often turns into resentment, much of which is a result of the movement. “So black lives matter and other lives don’t?!” a skeptical white person might ask, “That’s reverse racism! ALL lives matter!”

This way of thinking is extremely flawed and it shows an ultimate confusion of all things racial, a faux pas that is understandable when one makes especially if they grew up in a predominately white community without any black people to show them the view from the other side. Reverse racism for white people is basically the racist stuff that white people do to black people, except it is reversed. For example, if someone were to start a “White Lives Matter” movement, in my opinion, that would be labeled as racist. So isn’t Black Lives Matter racist, too? The answer is no, and that is because reverse racism is not a real thing. It does not exist.Black Lives Matters is not racist, but that does not mean that it is not exclusive. Certainly, it is not as inclusive as the #AllLivesMatter hashtag that is used by some to mock and challenge the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Why don’t people go around saying “White Lives Matter?” There’s only one reason for this. It is because we already know it. From the way they are portrayed on TV, to people’s reaction when a white life is taken away, it is evident that it matters… more than most. 
That is certainly not the case when it comes to black lives. When the life of a black person is taken away, it is ignored because of the assumption that they were involved in the “gangster” or “thug” life. Black people are also more likely to live in poverty, receive a poor education and go to jail. Alive or dead, black lives continue to be belittled compare to those of whites. 

President Obama took it upon himself to explain why “black lives matter” is an important statement. “I think the reason that the organizers used the phrase “black lives matter” was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s lives matter,” he said. “What they were suggesting was, there is a specific problem that is happening in the African-American community that’s not happening in other communities. And that is a legitimate issue that we’ve got to address.” 


Indeed, this is what the black lives movement is fighting. It is not here to undermine the lives of white people and say that their lives don't matter. Instead, the black lives matter movement is here to try to gain the same privileges of respect and dignity that many whites in the white community take advantage of. When a black person dies from poverty-related causes, the movement wants people to care. When a black person is unfairly gunned down in the street, it wants people to get angry. It literally just wants black lives to matter. That’s what it means. Nothing more.

So the next time you hear someone say that they are against the “Black Lives Matter” movement, do not be angry. Simply try to educate them on how the movement is only trying to point out that in order for all lives to matter, black lives have to matter too.