The N Word

[TheParser]

In my opinion, we should never use ethnic epithets at any time, even in the privacy of our homes.

*****

Of course, we are human beings.

That means we are not perfect.

I witnessed the following a while back.

A man was starting to cross the street. An automobile refused to stop for him. The pedestrian stopped in time to avoid being hit. The pedestrian yelled at the driver "Are you crazy?" as the automobile zoomed away.

As the shaken pedestrian passed me on the sidewalk, he looked back at the site of the incident and said (to himself) a epithet that referred to the driver's ethnicity.

I am guessing that he normally would never use that word (especially in this very liberal city), but his anger got the better of him.

*****

I guess that everyone occasionally will lose control in times of great emotion. They might use hurtful epithets for ethnic groups, religious groups, sexual orientation groups, gender groups, etc.

In my opinion, however, whenever we take the time to write something, there is NO excuse to ever use epithets. (I have not read it yet, but I noticed that a member recently started a thread whose title includes an epithet for Chinese people. I am disappointed that s/he did that.)

 

[Marion Morrison]

its the only thing they own, let them have it.

I think that a group of people who have basically stolen everything they have need not make comments about what others own.

Yeah, cuz you know, it's white people you worry about when you go to the money machine at night, amirite?

Forward to 7:20 in.

Actually since I live in Kansas and if I stop in a rural town to get something I do worry about white people.

I don't listen to comedians to learn about the social condition. I listen to a comedian to laugh.

So I won't be fast forwarding to 7:20 in.

Race, class and opportunity



Maybe you need to listen to this in it's entirety,

Translation:


I watched the first 30 seconds and stopped after "Donate today".

I do say "nigga" every now and then. I get called a cracker daily. It's OK where I'm from, then again, I'm not from lily-white Kansas. Deys lotsa black folk 'round heanh. We're all Americans, though, ain't too many African-Americans. I've met some, they were white and spoke Dutch.

Yeah of course. The standard forum story of how the white man hardly ever uses the n word but those terrible backs are hurling racial insults at him all day long. You live in the south. America itself is lily white. I doubt if it's OK where you live. If you stopped at donation, you didn't watch he video. That was expected. So then since you can't provide a reasonable educated discussion on this matter we just won't be talking.

No, bitch. I never said "terrible blacks hurling racial insults". See, this is where your delusion takes over.

What I said was:

"It's OK where I'm from."

As in: "It ain't no thang". Apparently it is to your sensitive ass, sucks to be you.

The blacks are not "terrible", they are my friends. You are an idiot, though.

 

[IM2]

I hear Black people constantly call each other n!gger during regular conversation all of the time whenever I go into the city on business.

Yet they claim the word is extremely hurtful and offensive. But only if they hear a non black person utter the word. .... ....

its the only thing they own, let them have it.

I think that a group of people who have basically stolen everything they have need not make comments about what others own.

Yeah, cuz you know, it's white people you worry about when you go to the money machine at night, amirite?

Forward to 7:20 in.

Actually since I live in Kansas and if I stop in a rural town to get something I do worry about white people.

I don't listen to comedians to learn about the social condition. I listen to a comedian to laugh.

So I won't be fast forwarding to 7:20 in.

Race, class and opportunity



Maybe you need to listen to this in it's entirety,

You live in Kansas IM2? What part? My family is all from the Kansas/:Missouri area. Fort Scott, Wichita, Lawrence, Clinton.

I've been to all those places. I live in the Manhattan/Topeka area right now. right now.

 

[IM2]

I think that a group of people who have basically stolen everything they have need not make comments about what others own.

Yeah, cuz you know, it's white people you worry about when you go to the money machine at night, amirite?

Forward to 7:20 in.

Actually since I live in Kansas and if I stop in a rural town to get something I do worry about white people.

I don't listen to comedians to learn about the social condition. I listen to a comedian to laugh.

So I won't be fast forwarding to 7:20 in.

Race, class and opportunity



Maybe you need to listen to this in it's entirety,

Translation:


I watched the first 30 seconds and stopped after "Donate today".

I do say "nigga" every now and then. I get called a cracker daily. It's OK where I'm from, then again, I'm not from lily-white Kansas. Deys lotsa black folk 'round heanh. We're all Americans, though, ain't too many African-Americans. I've met some, they were white and spoke Dutch.

Yeah of course. The standard forum story of how the white man hardly ever uses the n word but those terrible backs are hurling racial insults at him all day long. You live in the south. America itself is lily white. I doubt if it's OK where you live. If you stopped at donation, you didn't watch he video. That was expected. So then since you can't provide a reasonable educated discussion on this matter we just won't be talking.

No, bitch. I never said "terrible blacks hurling racial insults". See, this is where your delusion takes over.

What I said was:

"It's OK where I'm from."

As in: "It ain't no thang". Apparently it is to your sensitive ass, sucks to be you.

The blacks are not "terrible", they are my friends. You are an idiot, though.

Well I think it s a thang. And it's not OK where you come from. .I have relatives in that pat of the nation and they don't like being called that. So you can stop trying to tell me what blacks like because you know 2 blacks who put up with you using the word. Sensitive has nothing to do with it. Understand?

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

its the only thing they own, let them have it.

I think that a group of people who have basically stolen everything they have need not make comments about what others own.

Yeah, cuz you know, it's white people you worry about when you go to the money machine at night, amirite?

Forward to 7:20 in.

Actually since I live in Kansas and if I stop in a rural town to get something I do worry about white people.

I don't listen to comedians to learn about the social condition. I listen to a comedian to laugh.

So I won't be fast forwarding to 7:20 in.

Race, class and opportunity



Maybe you need to listen to this in it's entirety,

You live in Kansas IM2? What part? My family is all from the Kansas/:Missouri area. Fort Scott, Wichita, Lawrence, Clinton.

I've been to all those places. I live in the Manhattan/Topeka area right now. right now.

So, you live in an area which has few Blacks, presumably?

Why, why, why, why, why?

 

[Taz]

In light of the recent incident involving LeBron James, I would like to share some portions of Michael Eric Dyson’s book, “Tears We Cannot Stop,” and also add some words from my own book.

“N*****. Admit it, beloved, that word – that abomination – is still with us. Yes, it’s ugly. Yes, it’s full of hate. And yet, a lot of you, or at least a lot of the folk you know, still think of black folk as n******. I remember the first time I heard the white world call me “n*****.” I say white world because it was not an individual man saying that to me, mind you, even though the words came from his mouth. This man was simply repeating what he had been told about me. I was every black person he’d ever met. We were all the same. That’s what n***** meant. That’s what it still means.”

“And please don’t make a silly false equivalence between us. Some of you claim that black folk are racists too when they use epithets like honky, redneck, cracker, ofay, gray boy and the like. That you know that’s a lie. N***** has no rival. There is no rough or refined equivalence between the term and the many derisive references to white folks. Those terms don’t evoke singularly gruesome actions. N***** is unique because the menace implies is portable; it shows up wherever a white tongue is willing to suggest intimidation and destruction. There are no examples of black folk killing white folk en masse; terrorizing them with racial violence; shouting “cracker” as they lynch them from trees and then selling postcards to document their colossal crimes. Black folk have not enjoyed the protection of the state to carry out such misdeeds.”

“The state, in fact, rendered black folk even more vulnerable. White racism was the government’s science project; bigotry was its nightly homework. Evil flashed in a white face in a terrorizing crackerocracy, an exuberantly diabolic band of proud haters of black culture composed of the Klan, the White Citizens Council, neo-Confederate outfits, white nationalist groups, and the legions of unaffiliated fellow travelers. Their mottoes differed, but N***** is the rallying cry for all of them. We must effectively respond in our day to the ugly persistence of racism, even if its form has changed.”

The following words are from a letter I personally received from a young black girl named Jean. She really opened my eyes to how the use of the n***** word can have a devastating effect:

“Dee, the other day I was on a bus and a little white boy spat at me and called me a n*****. Tears came to my eyes. Why must I be called a n*****? I remember the day I Iooked up that word in the dictionary and it said it meant ignorant. I know I’m not ignorant. But if you look up that word in the revised edition it means, Black Americans, Negroes. Why? The walls of anger are getting stronger. I’m tired of trying to love those people. I’m tired of trying to get their education. Dee, as I write this letter I’m in tears. Because I’m writing to you knowing you don’t understand. Getting angry at myself. Hating myself because I’m turning away from God. It’s like I’m second best to him. Hey, wait a minute, those white people are first. Praying to him, wanting him to answer my prayers. Wondering does God love white people more than us. We been the white man’s slaves. Most of our women been their whores. Did God look down on us? Dee, the only desire I have is to die. You know, the first child I have I’m going to name him N***** so he won’t have to learn the hurt I have. He’ll think he’s famous The wall that I have is getting stronger. It’s going to take a miracle. But will your God even help? My mind I going through some changes it wouldn’t have to if white people would leave me alone. I need prayer. Pray for my attitude. The hatred, the pain, the discomfort, the unlovable soul that I have. Maybe God will help then. He’ll listen to you – you’re white!”

I grew up in Missouri and I can not, to this day, remember anything positive being said about black people. I was taught they were dirty, lazy, oversexed and violent. I was told to stay away from them, not to associate with them at all. I heard them called N***** all the time and heard my family say, "They want everything handed to them on a silver platter." This was what was put into my head. And it pretty much stayed there until I met a black man who contradicted every single one of those stereotypes. Thank God I met Henry and since then, the many, many positive black folks who opened my eyes and heart to the truth. I look at things this way. We either recognize racism and the use of the N word for what they are and try to combat them - or we don't. I choose to try.

Blacks call each other n1gger, is that also devastating? Or does it have to be a white who calls then that?

 

[MikeK]

Yeah and shortly after 1863 Jim Crow became the law of the land.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1936. The first time I ever saw an actual example of Jim Crow segregation was in 1956 at the railroad depot at Yamasee, South Carolina, while on my way to Parris Island.

 

[ptbw forever]

its the only thing they own, let them have it.

I think that a group of people who have basically stolen everything they have need not make comments about what others own.

Yeah, cuz you know, it's white people you worry about when you go to the money machine at night, amirite?

Forward to 7:20 in.

Actually since I live in Kansas and if I stop in a rural town to get something I do worry about white people.

I don't listen to comedians to learn about the social condition. I listen to a comedian to laugh.

So I won't be fast forwarding to 7:20 in.

Race, class and opportunity



Maybe you need to listen to this in it's entirety,

Translation:


I watched the first 30 seconds and stopped after "Donate today".

I do say "nigga" every now and then. I get called a cracker daily. It's OK where I'm from, then again, I'm not from lily-white Kansas. Deys lotsa black folk 'round heanh. We're all Americans, though, ain't too many African-Americans. I've met some, they were white and spoke Dutch.

Yeah of course. The standard forum story of how the white man hardly ever uses the n word but those terrible backs are hurling racial insults at him all day long. You live in the south. America itself is lily white. I doubt if it's OK where you live. If you stopped at donation, you didn't watch he video. That was expected. So then since you can't provide a reasonable educated discussion on this matter we just won't be talking.

America is the most racially diverse country in the world by a country mile.

 

[MikeK]

[...] For most of this nations history when whites use the word it has been meant in a derogatory manner. Now that's what whites have done. Take responsibility for the wrongs and stop trying to seek ways you can find to justify why you want to continue using the word.

Chris Rock spoke for the majority of White Americans in saying, "I have no problem with Black people but I can't stand n!ggers." So if I use the word n!gger when discussing the obnoxious behavior of a given group or individual, why should any and every Black person who overhears my intentionally derogatory reference take offense?

There are two distinctly different categories of Black American. There are decent, peaceful, respectable Black people -- and there are n!ggers. Why should anyone, Black or White, not use derogatory terms when referring to subjects who do not deserve the use of more respectful language?

 

[MizMolly]

You would think using the "N" word amongst themselves would be nothing but a reason to incite anger with white people....

Why would you think that?

Why would black people want to call each other a name that they hate white people calling them?

Why do you guys think the world revolves around whites? Why would using the word incite anger among whites and why in the fuck should we care?

I don't use the word myself. So I don't understand what problem racist whites have with simply not using a word you have been asked not to use. I say racist whites because you guys are the only whites who ask the question. Most whites do not and they live quite fine without calling us that word even if blacks use it.. But you guys..... Then you start crying when you get called racists.

I don't use the word either. People aren't racist for asking questions. Why is it okay for some to use it but not others? And no, the answer can't be cause it has different meanings, when the original meaning is hateful, why use a hateful word?

You've been given the answer You don't get to make the rules on this matter nor do you get to frame the debate relative to the words usage. For most of this nations history when whites use the word it has been meant in a derogatory manner. Now that's what whites have done. Take responsibility for the wrongs and stop trying to seek ways you can find to justify why you want to continue using the word.

Your elitist attitude is funny. I don't get to make the rules? LOL I don't want to make the rules, I don't use the word. I asked a question.

 

[Marion Morrison]

Yeah, cuz you know, it's white people you worry about when you go to the money machine at night, amirite?

Forward to 7:20 in.

Actually since I live in Kansas and if I stop in a rural town to get something I do worry about white people.

I don't listen to comedians to learn about the social condition. I listen to a comedian to laugh.

So I won't be fast forwarding to 7:20 in.

Race, class and opportunity



Maybe you need to listen to this in it's entirety,

Translation:


I watched the first 30 seconds and stopped after "Donate today".

I do say "nigga" every now and then. I get called a cracker daily. It's OK where I'm from, then again, I'm not from lily-white Kansas. Deys lotsa black folk 'round heanh. We're all Americans, though, ain't too many African-Americans. I've met some, they were white and spoke Dutch.

Yeah of course. The standard forum story of how the white man hardly ever uses the n word but those terrible backs are hurling racial insults at him all day long. You live in the south. America itself is lily white. I doubt if it's OK where you live. If you stopped at donation, you didn't watch he video. That was expected. So then since you can't provide a reasonable educated discussion on this matter we just won't be talking.

No, bitch. I never said "terrible blacks hurling racial insults". See, this is where your delusion takes over.

What I said was:

"It's OK where I'm from."

As in: "It ain't no thang". Apparently it is to your sensitive ass, sucks to be you.

The blacks are not "terrible", they are my friends. You are an idiot, though.

Well I think it s a thang. And it's not OK where you come from. .I have relatives in that pat of the nation and they don't like being called that. So you can stop trying to tell me what blacks like because you know 2 blacks who put up with you using the word. Sensitive has nothing to do with it. Understand?

Okay, super-sensitive snowflake.

Tell ya wut, I'll do what I do, and you can go jump off a cliff, k?

Come on down heanh and I'll take your ass to the projects for a Sunday BBQ. We'll see how long your rhetoric lasts. (Before the jits swarm ya, and my lady friends smack you silly for being a retard)

 

[MikeK]

I think that a group who lived off the hard work others did for free or at reduced pay from 1618-1965 by written law should not be talking about who lived off the hard work of others. As for your last question, this lie has been long ago debunked.

Am I mistaken or are you suggesting that all White people, including contemporary Whites and Northerners, have lived off the work of others (presumably slaves)?

 

[MikeK]

You've been given the answer You don't get to make the rules on this matter nor do you get to frame the debate relative to the words usage. For most of this nations history when whites use the word it has been meant in a derogatory manner. Now that's what whites have done. Take responsibility for the wrongs and stop trying to seek ways you can find to justify why you want to continue using the word.

In that comment you apparently assume that each and every time any White person uses this forbidden word it is intentionally directed at or referring to any and all Blacks. Am I mistaken?

 

[MikeK]

Yeah and shortly after 1863 Jim Crow became the law of the land.

"Jim Crow" segregation policies were written into the laws of several but not all states.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where a form of voluntary segregation existed. There were no laws calling for segregation and there were a few areas, such as Park Slope and Coney Island, which were inhabited by a broad mixture of ethnicities, including some Blacks. But for the most part the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn was almost exclusively Italian, Flatbush was predominately Jewish, Bedford/Stuyvestant was Black, Bay Ridge was mainly Scandinavian, Ridgewood was German, the Waterfront district was divided between Italian at one end and Irish at the other.

Again, this division was entirely voluntary. There were no rules or laws mandating either exclusion or inclusion. Such examples of voluntary segregation have been noted by journalists and sociologists as evidence that most people prefer to live among and associate with those who are most familiar to them. There is nothing "racist" or maliciously prejudiced about it. It is in keeping with the nature of the human animal. Another outstanding example of this "flock" and "tribe" tendency is the Chinatowns which arise in every area of the U.S. that hosts a substantial Chinese population. The Chinese (and other Asians) are peaceful, productive, respectable people who are welcome to live wherever they choose. But they invariably choose to form their own communities and keep to themselves.

 

[IM2]

Yeah and shortly after 1863 Jim Crow became the law of the land.

"Jim Crow" segregation policies were written into the laws of several but not all states.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where a form of voluntary segregation existed. There were no laws calling for segregation and there were a few areas, such as Park Slope and Coney Island, which were inhabited by a broad mixture of ethnicities, including some Blacks. But for the most part the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn was almost exclusively Italian, Flatbush was predominately Jewish, Bedford/Stuyvestant was Black, Bay Ridge was mainly Scandinavian, Ridgewood was German, the Waterfront district was divided between Italian at one end and Irish at the other.

Again, this division was entirely voluntary. There were no rules or laws mandating either exclusion or inclusion. Such examples of voluntary segregation have been noted by journalists and sociologists as evidence that most people prefer to live among and associate with those who are most familiar to them. There is nothing "racist" or maliciously prejudiced about it. It is in keeping with the nature of the human animal. Another outstanding example of this "flock" and "tribe" tendency is the Chinatowns which arise in every area of the U.S. that hosts a substantial Chinese population. The Chinese (and other Asians) are peaceful, productive, respectable people who are welcome to live wherever they choose. But they invariably choose to form their own communities and keep to themselves.

Jim Crow in the North

In Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (Random House, November), Thomas J. Sugrue, a professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, lays bare the difficulty blacks have had in the North from before the first black Great Migration in the ’20s to the present.

This 80-year chronicle of recent history is, at best, a glass-half-empty tale.

The ’20s, as Sugrue tells it, was an era of growing hostility, as blacks moved north. Restrictive covenants blocked black entry into many neighborhoods. Schools were openly segregated. Shopkeepers and theaters displayed “whites only” signs. Sugrue writes, “Even celebrities such as Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Dorothy Dandridge and Marian Anderson had a hard time finding rooms and faced Jim Crow in restaurants when they toured the North.”

In the ’30s, blacks gained some voice in the Roosevelt administration, and some New Deal programs provided them relief from the Great Depression. But racism prevailed in many government programs. Federal housing agencies deemed black neighborhoods unworthy of credit, and federal officials segregated public housing. The ’30s and ’40s also saw white riots – in cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles – aimed at restricting blacks to neighborhoods they already occupied.

After World War II, northern cities became even more segregated as blacks moved into urban areas and whites migrated to the suburbs. Large-scale developments – such as the Levittowns in Long Island, N.Y., and Bucks County, Pa. – restricted occupancy for whites only.

Sweet Land of Liberty also takes an incomplete look at the northern courtroom struggles to attack discrimination during the ’60s and ’70s.

Robert L. Carter, the general counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – for whom I worked in the ’60s – believed that the U.S. Supreme Court had to apply in the North the same equal educational opportunities doctrine central to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The nation’s most distinguished social scientists and educators testified in northern federal courts about segregation’s harmful effects irrespective of intent, but every appeals court that considered the issue rejected the NAACP’s position, and the Supreme Court refused to review these decisions.

Sweet Land of Liberty argues that the North’s efforts to achieve racial equality stagnated in the ’70s and ’80s and never recovered. Sugrue blames this on “the mismatch between social movements and the huge social problems they faced” – problems caused by “hypermobility of capital,” “the growing gap between rich and poor” and “the triumph of the market.”

He also argues that the old national civil rights organizations – such as the NAACP – were in decline, replaced by community-oriented grassroots movements that revolved around War on Poverty programs. However, community-based activism was unable to counter structural changes, such as the loss of well-paid industrial jobs, tax policies favoring the rich and an anti-government ideology.

Sugrue discusses the black power movement, but he has little positive to say about it. He instead sees electoral politics becoming the focus of community leaders, resulting in many blacks being elected to local and state offices. Yet many black officials – hobbled by budgetary constraints and aware of their white constituents’ concerns – could do little more then preserve the status quo.

Jim Crow in the North

Let me add here that whites have always tried using examples of Asians as the perfect minority who never complained and just kept quiet because whites were angry that blacks dared fight the system as they did. But the problem with this lie is that Asians were in the black panthers and Asians fought with black civil rights groups.

.

 

[Marion Morrison]

IM2 seems to be oblivious of the fact that there were black slaveowners. Something that destroys his delusion, yet is fact.

 

[sealybobo]

IM2 seems to be oblivious of the fact that there were black slaveowners. Something that destroys his delusion, yet is fact.

He’s already explained why they owned slaves. Buy them from whites. Buy your sister or mother basically freeing them.

 

[Marion Morrison]

IM2 seems to be oblivious of the fact that there were black slaveowners. Something that destroys his delusion, yet is fact.

He’s already explained why they owned slaves. Buy them from whites. Buy your sister or mother basically freeing them.

That wasn't the reason.

 

[Unkotare]

IM2 seems to be oblivious of the fact that there were black slaveowners. Something that destroys his delusion, yet is fact.

He’s already explained why they owned slaves. Buy them from whites. Buy your sister or mother basically freeing them.

John Casor was not related to Anthony Johnson.

 

[sealybobo]

You've been given the answer You don't get to make the rules on this matter nor do you get to frame the debate relative to the words usage. For most of this nations history when whites use the word it has been meant in a derogatory manner. Now that's what whites have done. Take responsibility for the wrongs and stop trying to seek ways you can find to justify why you want to continue using the word.

In that comment you apparently assume that each and every time any White person uses this forbidden word it is intentionally directed at or referring to any and all Blacks. Am I mistaken?

Cool black people will explain that you can use the n word but use it with caution. If you feel comfortable saying it around the people surrounding you go for it.

We use it a lot at poker. That and Jew. I’ve been busted by blacks and Jews calling someone else a ni@@er or Jew and they took offense. They really shouldn’t have because I wasn’t talking to them.

But I was using the terms to mean negative connotation towards the person who just won money from me. So I can see how they’d take offense. I wasn’t saying “my nigga” in a positive way. But still I didn’t mean anything by it and they are snowflakes.

It’s be like if someone raped a guy in front of me and someone called the rapist a fucking Greek. I wouldn’t like that