this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Frankly that's something I do not understand. Why this single specific word? We have dozens of terrible offensive words. Why this specific one is considered so bad we cannot even talk about it directly, even when merely discussing it? I would think discussing it and not directing it at someone would be pretty reasonable. As with every single other word.
Is one of the other words associated with 200 years of chattel slavery?
Probably no, not in this specific form, that being said I don't want to compare one tragedy to another. There are lots of disgusting parts of the human history, and that's certainly one of them.
The only equivalent I can think of starts with k and is a slur for Jewish people, and it's much less commonly heard.
Ironically enough, that word was coined by Jewish people who had been in the US for generations to describe newly-arrived Jews from Eastern Europe. Still offensive but somewhat different from the n-word.
What about something related to the indigenous peoples of the Americas?
We killed them and displaced the rest so damn fast that we forgot all the major slurs for them
"Savages", "Redskins”, "Squaw", and so on.
Some news headlines even refer to the second one as "the R-word":
CNN: The terrible R-word that football needed to lose
Politico: The R-Word Is Even Worse Than You Think
These are extremely harmful words with hundreds of years of genocide behind them. I imagine the only reason they aren't censored like the N-word is is because Native Americans make up a proportionally smaller population due to the effectiveness of the genocide, and because the reservation system is in contrast to racial integration as with American black people in so much as it limits interactions between them and racist whites who would overuse a dehumanizing phrase to the same extent.
And things even worse than slavery towards them. And that a lot of racists who would likely shoot black people still use that word on purpose. And that there's still a lot of those people.
Negro is pretty gosh darn close, but I guess it's just not quite as derogatory.
It's weird being told that a regular color in your native language could get you beat up to a pulp in another country.
To my non-American ears "negro" sounds far worse actually. Probably because of how rare it is in comparison.
To my Hispanic ears, "n---o" sounds like an Anglophone saying "black". Even when used derogatorily, my immediate first thought is that they pronounced it incorrectly, then the rest of the associated matters kick in and I realize what they are really saying.
Imagine if in the Hispanosphere , the word "black" was almost synonymous with the n-word.
But yeah, don't use n---o in English to refer to or describe anyone.
Call up the UNCF and let them know immediately!
(Yes, I know they mostly brand themselves as the United Fund now.)
It was used in place of black for a longer period, and wasn't necessarily considered a slur in and of itself. But of course if you say it with a sneer, even "black" can be used as an insult.
For example a lot of books (even written by people of color) used "negro" and "coloured" etc. interchangeably up to the mid-late 20th century. But in modern context very few people use it in a manner that isn't derogatory.
I still have trouble referring to a person as 'black'. It feels like a slur, or at least an inappropriate racial caricature (they're not really black!) and it still surprises me that it's become the acceptable and inoffensive term.
The n word almost seemed more mild, being about the same thing (an inappropriate way to describe race from skin colour), but linguistically removed (I'm not a native Latin speaker*) so I can feel it's just a word, no need to be intrinsically good or bad.
From my experience, black people want to be called black. I'm a white kid, but was raised in a foster family with three black siblings and other black family, including some that lived in a ghetto in another city. It was the 90s and early 2000s, so we watched some BET, we watched the Boondocks, we listened to thug rap, we watched shows with black characters such as All That and Cousin Skeeter. Because it was all a part of my brothers' culture, and they felt attached to it, and "black culture" was cool to all of us. And in anything we participated in I've never heard a single African-American who didn't call themselves "black" and be fine being called that. Maybe there are some rich people like Obama or Tom of The Boondocks who wouldn't call themselves "black", but they seem to be of a different lifestyle and culture than that.
I've also sometimes made the argument in defense of "black", that "African-American" is mildly politically-incorrect itself— not that I have a problem with the term, just the hyper-vigilant enforcing of it. Because it's not synonymous with skin color itself, it's a statement about where they came from. We don't call white people "European-Americans"; and what do we call non-black African-Americans from, say, Egypt or South America? So... yeah.
That makes sense.
I'm not American; never been to America. So I grew up with different culture. The dark skinned ethnicities near me were mainly Pakistani, and I don't remember if they were happy to be called black or not. I think we basically grew up feeling like you have to ignore skin colour, the same way you ignore the size of someone's nose. We weren't supposed to see it as any more different than someone else is from Wales, and someone else is very tall, and someone else lives in this or that neighborhood - but to comment on 'black' skin or big nose might give offence.
I agree 'African-American' is an awkward term also, as you say.
I suppose part of the difference is the black community in America, as I understand it, has a very strong cultural identity, whereas when I grew up the idea was basically that your ethnicity was another part of your background, but not your community identity. A British Indian is a Brit who happens to have Indian heritage, that they may like to hold close or may like to distance from: but we're all British. And someone from South Kensington might talk all posh an' all; and a Scouser's gonna Scouse: but we're all British. That sort of thing. (And if you're not British we still welcome you just as fondly; and to do otherwise would also be racist.)
Yeah, black Americans have a very distinct culture. Started as slaves, were segregated in a lot of ways, they still often have ghetto neighborhoods, they created unique genres of music with strong black identity and they still have their own entertainment catered towards them. That's America for you.
How about when people they don't think they're racist whisper it? I hate and love that.
I agree with you. But after studying Spanish I understand the origin of the word, so I'm somewhere in the middle on it.
Non-American here. I also didn't get this, thinking it's just puritanical bullshit. Some Americans seem obsessed with auto-censorship.
Anyway, I finally understood while watching Django Unchained. It's an extremely dehumanising word, meant to separate people (who have rights) from things which do not. It's a tool to be able to do this distinction and then do unspeakable evil to specific people because they don't count as people and so it's alright.
Now remember that slavery was ended* only relatively recently, segregation was a thing during the lifetimes of many people and this mindset of black people not being even human is still prevalent...
The word is meant to be always used in hostility and it's still being used like that today. That's why you want to steer clear of it.
I think a lot of the conflict around the word is centered on the fact that many black people use it (obviously without the hard r) in casual reference to other people, often even people that aren’t black. It’s essentially become equivalent to “dude” or “brother”. So some people don’t see how it’s wrong to use it in that context even if you aren’t black.
I’m not saying I agree, mind you. I’m just making an observation
Isn't it ironic that a movie with so many uses of that word helped you understand that word better?
To me it seems a very good reason to believe that people shouldn't be afraid of the syntax of the word, but definitely oppose the use when the semantic is the despicable one.
There's an equivalent for homosexuals
In my opinion, the intellectually disabled too. Unfortunately, many people make all kinds of excuses why that word, which has been used to bully the disabled for decades, is an acceptable one.
The OJ Simpson trial. No joke.