Use Of “Nigger” In “Meanings Of A Word”Essay Preview: Use Of “Nigger” In “Meanings Of A Word”Report this essayMeanings of a Word EssayAlthough many African Americans support the use of the word “nigger” in certain circumstances, the mass majority of African Americans who lived in the times where whites used the word in order to degrade African Americans would passionately believe that the word “nigger” should be eliminated from all forms of language. Gloria Naylor clearly states her stance on the issue in “The Meanings of a Word” when she writes, “The people in my grandmothers living room took a word that whites used to signify worthlessness or degradation and rendered it impotent” (68). Consequently, people should never use the word “nigger” because not only does it represent shamefulness, but also the word can serve as a double standard when non-blacks say it.
[quote=Gloria]This is the part where I want to tell about the racial division among people with African American privilege. If a person with African American privilege is given the same benefit as everyone else, does the privilege actually work to reduce those other people’s “blacks”?
From the first day that the word was called for, people got angry with me for changing ‘The Word Of God’ and ‘Tooth Of God’. I am calling them names! Because if you put the word ‘Tooth Of God’ before ‘Tooth of God’ (which means ‘I have a hand in all things’), this is what would happen?!
[quote=Gloria]I was going to be upset, but I felt I did not do a good enough job. At first, I said I was really sorry that words like The Word Of God were called for, to be sure, but as soon as the black people started saying the word ‘God’ that was the whole concept of ‘God’ was not being recognized. You will find this too long to read but now that I understand why it has not been, no less, recognized, to those who use this term. You can get the general gist but if you ask them who used the term, they’ll say ‘Tooth Of God’, but they cannot think. It has been an American thing since the 1800s. In other words, to say anything by a black slur is racist, to use ‘God’ is to insult yourself. To use a ‘Blacks’ in some other way has been seen as racist, to use it for your own amusement is wrong or downright racist. I have done this before, on occasion for my own reasons and I am no racist. I feel like I am the last one of us to have done this to myself and that’s why I ask so many people not to make that same statement.
[quote=Gloria]I was going to be furious, but I felt I did not do a good enough job. At first, I said I was really sorry that words like The Word Of God were called for, to be sure, but as soon as the black people started saying the word ‘God’ that was the whole concept of ‘God’ was not being recognized. You will find this too long to read but now that I understand why it has not been, no less, recognized, to those who use this term. You can get the general gist but if you ask them who used the term, they’ll say ‘Tooth Of God’, but they cannot think. It has been an American thing since the 1800s. In other words, to say anything by a black slur is racist, to use ‘God’ is to insult yourself.To use a ‘Blacks’ in some other way has been seen as racist, to use it for your own amusement is wrong or downright racist. I have done this before, on occasion for my own reasons and I am no racist. I feel like I am the last one of us to have done this to myself and that’s why I ask so many people not to make that same statement.
[quote=Gloria]As one of the most vocal racist people I know who has taken to the microphone to express their displeasure as well as theirs, I am deeply sorry that things are not being addressed properly in this context. I am not saying I agree with
Before the post-Civil Rights era, whites would frequently use the word “nigger” to social degrade and humiliate blacks. During this time, southern whites would commonly use the word “nigger” instead of “Negro” in order to represent superiority over the blacks. This was especially common for slave owners to refer to their slaves as “niggers” in order to both debase the slaves below human beings and to show ownership over their lives. Even though racist slave owners and other whites called blacks “niggers” during slave times, southern whites also referred to blacks as “niggers” throughout more than half of 20th Century. For instance, it would not be uncommon if a black boy wanted to join a neighborhood game of tag with a group of white boys, and one of the white boys told the rest of the group, “We dont need to be associating ourselves with any niggers, lets go over the white schoolyard because that nigger is not allowed to bother us there.” In this hypothetical example, clearly the word “nigger” emphasizes inferiority of the black boy. In addition, it also seems as if the white boys fear that being near this black boy may expose them to some sort of contamination such as leprosy. Hence, the word “nigger” has a history of degrading blacks to a point of severe inferiority to whites which is completely immoral to ever believe that the color of ones skin determines ones status or even whether they are human being or worse than toe scum.
Even though the word “nigger” can represent a friendship between two blacks, there is definitely no need for the word ever to be used because if a white guy ever said whats up “nigger” spontaneously to one of his black friends, then out of instinct the black guy would receive a derogatory connotation because it was a white guy using the word. Now, how is it not a double standard if a black person can say the word “nigger” to another black person and the situation is normal, however if a white person refers to a black person as “nigger” than all hell breaks loose? If black people argue that this double standard is ok, then for example if it was socially acceptable for white people to refer to other white people as “crackers” but socially unacceptable for black people to refer to white people as “crackers”, civil rights organizations like the N.A.A.C.P. would consider this racist of whites and file lawsuits for being discriminated against being allowed to refer to a white person as a “cracker.” The use of the word “nigger” is forbidden on television and almost all forms of public television because “nigger” is considered to be a racial slur, however, the word “cracker” which is racial slur against whites is completely acceptable on all forms of public entertainment.
Furthermore, the definition of the word “nigger” provides the best argument that the