"That's a thought that makes me itch I twitch If i took the 't' out would i still be a bi(t)ch?" - Z-rock from The Coup also from Z-rock "it's mental trash so I'm picking up the litter I ain't the one .. . I ain't the n****" Rocket River
Actually intent has little to do with it They had a Sexual Harrassment training at my job and they said you intend has NO reflection on whether or not it is Sexual Harrassment. . .. only how it makes the other person feel. I found that interesting. . . . . I guess that applies to racism as well I had a Asian friend use terms like UFO and FOB . . . He told me what they meant and said BUT DON'T U USE THEM in a joking manor. . . but with an undercurrent of REALLY . . DON'T USE THEM every race, ethnic group, group in general has these things If someone says saying a certain thing is offensive to them I may question it to myself. . .I may question them for clarity even if i think it is ridiculous. . .I try to accept and respect their wishes Rocket River
When it comes to speaking, the feeling of the listener is the most important. When it comes to listening, the intent of the speaker is the most important.
In my view that would just be arrogant and insensitive to the history of the word's usage in this country. Blacks and Jews particularly have a gruesome recent history of hatred against them and jokingly using any words that can represent or reinforce that hatred is probably a bad idea. If your friend is just trying to find a way to "fit in" with the mainstreaming of hip hop culture just tell her that instead of saying what's up my gga just say what's up my brother/sister. It's really meant in the same vein without disrespecting anyone or their history. I once worked with a guy who would use the word *****rdly to, in my opinion, provoke people. Technically by definition the word isn't racial but obviously it could easily be considered offensive. Intent is really just a mind game a lot of times.
Oh my gawd... I agree completely! Way to go johnheath we agree on something yay! Hell just froze over! I'm just kidding. I used the word in a joking manner with my friends who are black and who are not. For a joke my asian friends used to call my chinc and I would call them honkey. I grew up in a black neighborhood and my brother and I were known as the "Copper *****s". Conversations at the playground went something like this... Hey where's J and Fox? Who? You know, the coppa *****s. Oh, they went home. Do I use it with my friends? yep. Do I use it as a insulting name? No. Do I use it with people I don't know or ever call a black person that I don't know a *****/er? In other words, do I want to die? No.
I used to say it all the time. Listen: If you ask a black man why it's okay that he says it and not okay for other races to say it, he'll tell you it's just because he's black and the other guy's white. He (we) don't have a good answer for that. It's because there is no reason why it's such a double-standard issue. Did I get mad when the urban white boys called me n*gga when I lived in DC? No, but I got mad if anyone outside the city said it. You know, the kid who grew up in the suburbs uses it? Uh-uh. No. It was over. Don't ask me why. About 4 years ago I made some major changes in my life, and quit using the word. Completely. It hasn't escaped my mouth since. I've been called a "n***er" before by a vindictive, evil villain (also known as my future father-in-law), but it didn't make me mad. I just learned to laugh about it. I hate the word, but why carry the chip on your shoulder, you know? So, for all the white people out there who want a black guy's take, there you go. Of course, if you listen to rap, you're bound to hear it anyways.
Blacks are divided on the issue but I (black) use it constantly when with friends. I don't expect non-blacks to understand this as we as blacks don't understand everything about other race's behavior. A perfect example would be to those that posted earlier that those of us that use the word must have a limited vocabulary. That's asinine. Hell, my brother just recieved his Masters and still refers to me as "My N!gga" (Denzel Washington, Training Day) everytime we call one another. Basically, some things just aren't to be understood. The point is to not try. Just understand that that's a word not to be said by any race other than black Americans. Whites especially. No offense intended as I have plenty of white friends but we'll never be close enough to exchange the "N" word during conversation. Don't over-analyze it. Respect it.
LOL! I will take this as a huge compliment. I agree totally. Children who read Huck Finn need a teacher to explain the nuances of the story.
Mulder beat me to it, but amazingly enough I agree with you too, johnheath. When I was a kid growing up in an overwhelmingly white, lower middle class neighborhood in Southeast Houston in the '50's and early '60's, the word was used in a derogatory fashion... as I'm sure someone familiar with the era can imagine. I didn't use it, however, because my Dad would have blown his stack. And I repected him and figured out why he felt that way. Like I mentioned in another thread, Dad was very liberal about social issues. He was a professor, which was odd for the area I grew up in. But he would have laughed at censoring "Huckleberry Finn". He would be completely against it. I think a teacher explaining the "nuances" of the word in the book would be the way to go as well.
"Are There Any ******s Here Tonight?" (Outraged whisper) "What did he say? TAre there any ******s here tonight?' Jesus Christ! Does he have to get that low for laughs? Wow Have I ever talked about the schwarzes when the schwarzes had gone home? Or spoken about the Moulonjohns when they'd left? Or placated some Southerner by absence of voice when he ranted and raved about ****** ****** ******?" Are there any ******s here tonight? I know that one ****** who works here, I see him back there. Oh, there's two ******s, customers, and, ah, aha! Between those two ******s sits one kike-- man, thank God for the kike! Uh, two kikes. That's two kikes, and three ******s, and one spic. One spic-- two, three spics. One mick. One mick, one spic, one hick, thick, funcky, spunky boogey. And there's another kike. Three kikes. Three kikes, one guinea, one greaseball. Three greaseballs, two guineas. Two guineas, one hunky funky lace-curtain Irish mick. That mick spic hunky funky boogey. Two guineas plus three greaseballs and four boogies makes usually three spics. Minus two Yid spic Polack funky spunky Polacks. AUCTIONEER: Five more ******s! Five more ******s! GAMBLER: I pass with six ******s and eight micks and four spics. The point? That the word's suppression gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. If President Kennedy got on television and said, "Tonight I'd like to introduce the ******s in my cabinet,: and he yelled "nig-ger******************************gigger" at every ****** he saw, "boogeyboogeyboogeyboogeyboogey,nig-ger******************" till ****** didn't mean anything any more, till ****** lost its meaning-- you'd never make any four-year-old "******" cry when he came home from school. Screw "Negro!" Oh, it's so good to say, "******!" Boy! "Hello, Mr. ******, how're you?" ---Lenny Bruce
It's taken on a new meaning, like "dog," "gay," and countless other words. Case in point; I've been referred to as "*****" by (gasp) black friends, and am about as "white" as they come. Granted, it wasn't long ago at all that segregation was around so there are still going to be a lot of people that it will genuinely and deeply offend. But language evolves, and many people are making too big a deal of it.
That's the standard explanation, and I don't doubt that it's accurate...I still find it offensvie, exept in one context. I voted used by no one, but I actually have an exception, and that is historical. If we are recreating a period, as say in the film "Glory", I feel it is an essential component of an accurate depiction to include the epithets used at those times...I suppose that could be extended to contemporary recreations of, say, a KKK meeting, and I'm not sure where I'd stand on that were I sober enough to stand at all at present... Still, all in all, with the exception that I mentioned above, I find it offensive no matter the race of the utterer. It isn't an inherantly evil word itself, merely a bastadrization of various latinized versions of the word for balck...The negative connotation has to do with those who have suffered death and degredation under it's banner, and I don't see the fates of those people reversed by adopting the phrase into the persecuted group in question.
My answer is a bit odd, I guess. I don't really think it should be used by anyone, but I don't have a problm with black folk using it. I guess it is because I grew up in it - in a majority-black environment, so it is actually kind of comforting. And, yes, I have been called it (in all of its forms) in both a positive and negative way. I have used various forms of the word, but only wit my wife and my dog (neither of them are black). Again, I think it is some kind of catharsis - my roots coming out while at the same time not being offensive to anyone.
I think that the context and the situation in which a hateful word is used makes a big difference. If you are a black person and you hear the n-word from another black person, in that case, the utterance can't be interpreted as a hostile, racist, threatening act. The person who said it is black himself after all and is in the same position as you. On the other hand, if a non-black person says it, then the potential for the utterance to be hostile, racist and threatening is there even if the speaker did not intend this and therefore it is much more potent. It seems so clear and straightforward to me.
What about when Chris Rock says that he loves black people, but he hates n-ers? Or when Delroy Lindo tells the convict that he is nothing but a damn n-er (can't remember the name of the movie, it is about a boot-camp style prison)? In both cases it is being used to express hostility toward the criminal element in black American culture. In Delroy Lindo's case it was certainly threatening.
Good point SM. I remember the Delroy Lindo film you are talking about, it is called "First Time Felon". You have to admit though if a white person said these things to black people it probably would seem or be taken as a little more hostile.
