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Honzo October 10th, 2005
Watched the movie Crash
tonight. Saw the cast on Oprah yesterday. During the Opera show, the
topic of the term “nigger” being used by black people came up. The cast
and Oprah have disagreeing opinions on the issue.
Oprah hated the word because of all the history associated with it.
She saw all the evil associated with the term and wanted to banish it.
Don Cheadle and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges
were in the other camp. They saw the word as an escape from the past.
They saw it as way of transforming the word from a negative to a
positive. They were taking something that was used in the past to
degrade the black race and redefining it into a word of comradely. They
also wanted to distinguish “nigger” from “nigga“. The “er” form of the word was still inappropriate, even for a black man to use, but the “a” variation was the good form.
I can almost accept this line of thought. However, the word is still
a racist one, only in the opposite direction for different reasons.
Before, the word was used to demean all blacks as a race, because of
their race. This is what made it racist. It singled out one race and
judged the entire race based on race.
Now, the situation has changed. A person of race A is allowed to use
the word, but not the a person of race B. All other points of context
are the same, meaning, inflection, situation, ect… The reason that
race B cannot use the word is because of person B’s race.
That is why either form of the word is still racist, only now, it is
racist towards all other races except blacks. In it’s other context, it
is still as racist, if not of a higher degree.
- Something is racist if it unduly discriminates against something solely due to a person’s race.
- Only the black race may use the term nigga in an unoffensive manner
- The determining factor in the morality of the use of the word nigga is solely the race of the person using it.
- ∴ The term nigga is a racist word.
The only way for the word to truly be non-racist is for it to be
used in a positive sense by all races. However, there would still be
the historical value of the word, which greatly diminishes this
possibility.
Side Note: I was kinda worried about what AdSense
would pick for adds because of some of the words used in this post.
However, all the adds so far show up as adds for diversity training.
Good job Google, that make be proud of you!
Update: My wording has hastily written and was not
clear. I have tried to re-word it to display my thinking on this as
close as possible.
Update 2 I have noticed that quite a few of you have come here from Newyork.Craigslist.org.
Please feel free to add your thoughts. As you can see, there are a
couple of different ways people view this topic. Other ideas are very
welcome here.
- News
- Comments(8)
The only problem is that instead of creating a positive word, the positive/negative aspects of it have switched
I disagree with this. As you pointed out, before the word was used to
put down blacks and a build up of the whites. But it has not switched
now. If it was switched, it would put down whites and build up blacks,
and it does not do this.
Because the race of the person determines the positive/negative
alignment of the word, the terms “nigger” and “nigga” are both still
racist. By racist, I mean that the word is ok for a person of race A to
say and not for race B to say because of the person’s race.
Again…I disagree. Knowing the history and use of the word in the
past, it means very different things coming from a white person and
coming from a black person. When coming from a white person, it has
always been used as a derogatory term, but this is not the case when
coming from a black person. It would only make sense that it would be
okay coming from a black person (and not sued as derogatory) but okay
from a white person. There is too much historical bagage connected to
the word.
Randall Kennedy has a really interesting book titles Nigger : The
Strange Career of a Troublesome Word that discusses the history of the
word. It is short and cheap and interesting - you might be interested
in checking it out
And links still are not working… :( The Randall Kennedy book is available through Amazon.
Some of your points are due to bad wording on my part, I will try to re-write the post some.
Dave, what about comming from other races besides whites? If it comes
from an Asian person, or a Persian Person, or an Arab Person, it is
still considered to be racist on the part of the person saying it.
But not if a black person is using it. Becuase the sole determaining
factor is the race of the person using it, it is be deffinition racist.
From Dictionary.com:
rac·ism Audio pronunciation of “racist” ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rszm)
n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or
ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
I do not think that this situation fits either of these definitions.
The person sayin the word is prejudged and discriminated against when using this word based solely by the race of the person saying it.
Compare to racism in the work place. Race X cannot do this job because
he/she is of Race X. Race Y can do this job just fine. Why? Because
they are not Race X (or because they are Race Y)
Race Y cannot use word A because he she is not of Race X. Race X can use word A because they are of Race X.
Since the moral value of the use of word A depends solely on the race
of the user, the word (or at least the use/reception of the word) the
term is racist.
I think African Americans call each other “nigga” almost to take away
the sting of the word for them. It’s the same with homosexuals calling
each other “fag” and me calling myself fat. It kind of takes away the
thunder of other people using that term.
I have been trying to think of similar situations that the same
argument applies to. I so far have come up with Jews and the halocaust
and myself and infiedel.