BANNING THE "N" WORD: NOT A SOLUTION
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
- William Shakespeare
As a little boy of about 4 or 5 I really admired Dashiki and was hoping my parents would
have one sown for me. Actually I would have preferred Agbada but if I couldn’t get that then
Dashiki would do just fine for me. I really wanted it.
I can’t remember now how I got my one and only Dashiki, I was just 4 or 5 years old and
that was a long time ago. I sometimes remember things that happened when I was
younger than that, but one cannot really rely on such recollection, year after year one’s
recollection seem to get embellished.
My parents would only buy pants and shirts for me, so naturally I wanted Dashiki really bad
so when I got one I was the happiest little boy on earth and I wanted to wear my Dashiki all
the time.
My mom loves going to church and hate to miss even half a day’s service, she seem to be
in church all the time and that is to this day, she must have attended the Sunday service
today. When attending these church services, I was usually a constant companion being
the baby of the family. It wasn’t long before my Dashiki was noticed and I got a new name
as a result of my love for my Dashiki, I earned the name “LABULE” which roughly
translated means someone from the bush. That is our people’s perception of our heritage,
fashioned of course after foreigners’ perception. Did that stop me from adorning my
Dashiki? You guessed right, no. my love for my Dashiki outweighs any insult intended by
those who labeled me with my new name, which was usually relayed with scorn.
When I was in secondary school I read the quote by William Shakespeare above and it got
me thinking. In my opinion, one should give more attention to substance rather than the
inconsequential, and that is not to take anything away from what happened in the past.
There has been a lot of debate about banning the word Nigger or Nigga or Niggah or the N
word or whatever else it’s called.
Niger in Latin means black.
The following appears in Wikipedia:
“In the United States, the word nigger was not always considered derogatory, but was
instead used by some as merely denotative of black, as it was in other parts of the English-
speaking world. In nineteenth-century literature, there are many uses of the word nigger
with no intended negative connotation.” See Wikipedia for other usage of the word.
African American registry has this to say about the word:
“The history of the word nigger is often traced to the Latin word niger , meaning black. This
word became the noun negro (black person) in English, and simply the color black in
Spanish and Portuguese. In Early Modern French niger became negre and, later, negress
(black woman) was unmistakably a part of lexical history. One can compare to negre the
derogatory nigger and earlier English substitutes such as negar, neegar, neger, and
niggor that developed into its lexico-semantic true version in English. It is probable that
nigger is a phonetic spelling of the white Southern mispronunciation of Negro.”
I encountered the word Nigger, Negro and other variations of the word before I came to the
USA , it was mentioned in a number of literature that I read when I was in secondary
school. As an African I didn’t see anything wrong in being referred to as a Negro, I definitely
didn’t give it much thought, I saw it as another language meaning black, after all my
language doesn’t call black black until it is translated.
There has been an all out war against the word Nigger and there has been a campaign to
stop the use of the word, especially in the African American community. The proponents of
the ban provided several reasons for the ban.
In their conclusion in an article entitled “Nigger (the word), a brief history!” contributing
writers, Phil Middleton and David Pilgrim concluded thus:
“Nigger is the ultimate expression of white racism and white superiority no matter how it is
pronounced. It is linguistic corruption, an attack on civility.” See http://www.omninerd.
com/2007/02/26/news/1149
“The term is ignorant and derogatory” says Leroy G. Comrie, a New York City council man.
See http://www.omninerd.com/2007/02/26/news/1149
Bishop Ricky Jones, a black minister and the head of the Living Word Fellowship Christian
Center in Brazoria, TX said “"It's trying to be made a term of endearment in the black
community, the way it has been used so loosely, but I for one, when I look at that word and
look at the history of it, it has been used to demonize, demoralize and degrade black
people as a whole."
"There is no god higher than history and I don't think recent developments are strong
enough to overcome the centuries of hatred that are attached to the word." Says Jabari
Asim, a deputy editor at the Washington Post and author of "The N Word: Who Can Say It,
Who Shouldn't and Why,"
See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246279,00.html
As with every issue there are those who disagree and believe the N-word shouldn’t be
banned. John Ridley is reported to have argued that any effort to ban the word is actually
insulting to the black community, as it suggests that black people can be bested by six
letters and two syllables.
The people who are accused of using the word indiscriminately, rappers and hip-hop stars
seemed to be bent on continuing to use the word. Ice T was reported to have said “I’m
going to use ni**a till the wheels falls off” according to the report Ice T said “a lot of black
people are too overly concerned with what white people think about them”. See http:
//vh1blog.vh1.com/2007/05/icet_wont_stop_.html
Tupac Shakur, if he was alive would probably have kicked against the ban of the word
Nigga which he defined as: "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished" in the lyrics to
his song Words of Wisdom, on his 1991 album 2Pacalypse Now.
In my opinion I don’t think the word should be banned, it is just an innocent word in a
legitimate language describing or defining a black man which was later hijacked by haters
and used derogatorily. Refer to the meaning of the word above. The word is not different
from the English calling us black which in Latin means Negro.
Racists, haters and prejudicial people are going to find a way of demeaning people
whenever they set their minds to it and that is the light in which Michael Richards
statement should be viewed. See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-
8044789871599060390 his attempt to explain it away cannot hold water because of the
context in which he used the word, he started by saying “…50 years ago we’d have you
upside down with a fucking fork up your ass” a while later he said “you interrupted me pal,
that’s what happens when you interrupt the white man don’t you know?”
There’s no way this was a slip of tongue, and if his excuse is he was angry, things we
harbor in our minds become manifest in moments of anger.
I think those who use the word to mean “my friend” or “my buddy” are actually doing a good
job of taking the stigma out of the word. If you look at the fact that the word at inception
innocently means black before the haters turn it into a word of hatred then you will agree
that if the hatred can be taken out of the word and it’s meaning changed it will take a lot of
sorrow out of the way of our children who would otherwise be hurt if the word is allowed to
retain it’s hateful potency. Language changes and we should not hold people to the dark
ages, that will not necessarily erase the history of what happened to the black man in the
dark age of slavery. We should spare our children the horror that our fathers went through
without taking away from them the significance of being a black man and the historical
feelings of being referred to as a Nigger. We owe them the responsibility of not teaching
mass hatred and while talking about the white man we should remember that the fight to
abolish slavery was not fought by just the black man and even after the abolition of slavery
some whites fought alongside blacks for total emancipation of the black man. When we
group white men or any man of any color together we are not better than those we
disparage. “Whites in another prominent community tried to protect their Black employees
from the whites who were now all over Tulsa looking to kill any Black man or woman.
Some were fearful and turned their maids and chauffeurs over to the mob. Others refused
and had their homes vandalized while shouts of "nigger lover" swelled through the mob.”
See http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/local.cfm?ArticleID=8458 under “Genocide on
'Black Wall Street'”
If those who are in positions of leadership of the black race are serious, there are
thousands and one issue facing the black man that I believe would be worth their time to
mobilize the black people to tackle. As Darryl James observed in his article THE BRIDGE:
The Black Anglo Saxon “*For all the talk of defining ourselves as African Americans, there
are those of us who define ourselves based on the culture we have adopted, which is
mostly European. While most of us pretend to be African American, many of us are really
Black Anglo Saxons. And even some of us who claim to be Afrocentric know little of that
which is intrinsically African.
For example, ask any so-called African American to name three kings or three nations in
Africa . Most of us have nothing that shows an intrinsic African understanding. Yet, even
Italians who can’t speak Italian know about Italy and Sicily , whether they have been there
or not, and many have not. Hell, many Black Anglo Saxons know about Italy and Sicily ,
even though they know nothing of Africa as demonstrated by the wretchedly stupid rappers
who take names of Italian gangsters with pride.
The point is that even the Black Anglo Saxon who loves the rhetoric of being Afrocentric has
no intention of making a real connection. That’s why we hear talk of how we were once
kings and queens, but those same talkers are doing anything but living like the heirs of
royal blood.
And, ask them of Africa today, and they believe that the entire continent is rife with AIDS, civil
wars and poverty. They accept this dismal view of Africa from American news reports, but
have never been to Africa and have never discussed the continent with native Africans.”
I have heard an African American whose dad is African say after all he’s not a slave. An
African American lady once told me that her dad told her not to give her children African
names even when the Dads of these kids are Africans and an African American talked with
such hatred of Africans that is not dissimilar to Michael Richards’ view on black men, he
referred to Africans as “you people”
African Americans are not the only culprit in this regard, I have heard Africans talk of African
American in a derogatory manner. This kind of mutual distrust and disrespect will not
move the black race forward and the black race cannot excel with this kind of attitude, it is a
case of a house divided against itself.
I believe we should look more at ourselves and chart a way forward for the black man. I
believe African Americans as well as “indigenous Africans” should look more at integration
of black man everywhere into Africa and I’m not talking of moving people to Africa . I think
they need to lobby the legislators of African countries to make laws giving citizenship to
Africans in Diaspora that desire same. I believe what Oprah did in South Africa is a step in
the right direction because education is very important to freedom, the right education that
is. I think African countries should build and fund schools in America where African
American children who are interested in African culture and language can go and be
educated.
Educating and integrating ourselves into a system that is African will help us bond, that is
my belief and there is no harm in giving that a shot. If we give ourselves goals and
purposes, if we make our race one to be envied then like the rose it won’t matter if we are
called names because then we shall be assured in our self worth.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
- William Shakespeare
As a little boy of about 4 or 5 I really admired Dashiki and was hoping my parents would
have one sown for me. Actually I would have preferred Agbada but if I couldn’t get that then
Dashiki would do just fine for me. I really wanted it.
I can’t remember now how I got my one and only Dashiki, I was just 4 or 5 years old and
that was a long time ago. I sometimes remember things that happened when I was
younger than that, but one cannot really rely on such recollection, year after year one’s
recollection seem to get embellished.
My parents would only buy pants and shirts for me, so naturally I wanted Dashiki really bad
so when I got one I was the happiest little boy on earth and I wanted to wear my Dashiki all
the time.
My mom loves going to church and hate to miss even half a day’s service, she seem to be
in church all the time and that is to this day, she must have attended the Sunday service
today. When attending these church services, I was usually a constant companion being
the baby of the family. It wasn’t long before my Dashiki was noticed and I got a new name
as a result of my love for my Dashiki, I earned the name “LABULE” which roughly
translated means someone from the bush. That is our people’s perception of our heritage,
fashioned of course after foreigners’ perception. Did that stop me from adorning my
Dashiki? You guessed right, no. my love for my Dashiki outweighs any insult intended by
those who labeled me with my new name, which was usually relayed with scorn.
When I was in secondary school I read the quote by William Shakespeare above and it got
me thinking. In my opinion, one should give more attention to substance rather than the
inconsequential, and that is not to take anything away from what happened in the past.
There has been a lot of debate about banning the word Nigger or Nigga or Niggah or the N
word or whatever else it’s called.
Niger in Latin means black.
The following appears in Wikipedia:
“In the United States, the word nigger was not always considered derogatory, but was
instead used by some as merely denotative of black, as it was in other parts of the English-
speaking world. In nineteenth-century literature, there are many uses of the word nigger
with no intended negative connotation.” See Wikipedia for other usage of the word.
African American registry has this to say about the word:
“The history of the word nigger is often traced to the Latin word niger , meaning black. This
word became the noun negro (black person) in English, and simply the color black in
Spanish and Portuguese. In Early Modern French niger became negre and, later, negress
(black woman) was unmistakably a part of lexical history. One can compare to negre the
derogatory nigger and earlier English substitutes such as negar, neegar, neger, and
niggor that developed into its lexico-semantic true version in English. It is probable that
nigger is a phonetic spelling of the white Southern mispronunciation of Negro.”
I encountered the word Nigger, Negro and other variations of the word before I came to the
USA , it was mentioned in a number of literature that I read when I was in secondary
school. As an African I didn’t see anything wrong in being referred to as a Negro, I definitely
didn’t give it much thought, I saw it as another language meaning black, after all my
language doesn’t call black black until it is translated.
There has been an all out war against the word Nigger and there has been a campaign to
stop the use of the word, especially in the African American community. The proponents of
the ban provided several reasons for the ban.
In their conclusion in an article entitled “Nigger (the word), a brief history!” contributing
writers, Phil Middleton and David Pilgrim concluded thus:
“Nigger is the ultimate expression of white racism and white superiority no matter how it is
pronounced. It is linguistic corruption, an attack on civility.” See http://www.omninerd.
com/2007/02/26/news/1149
“The term is ignorant and derogatory” says Leroy G. Comrie, a New York City council man.
See http://www.omninerd.com/2007/02/26/news/1149
Bishop Ricky Jones, a black minister and the head of the Living Word Fellowship Christian
Center in Brazoria, TX said “"It's trying to be made a term of endearment in the black
community, the way it has been used so loosely, but I for one, when I look at that word and
look at the history of it, it has been used to demonize, demoralize and degrade black
people as a whole."
"There is no god higher than history and I don't think recent developments are strong
enough to overcome the centuries of hatred that are attached to the word." Says Jabari
Asim, a deputy editor at the Washington Post and author of "The N Word: Who Can Say It,
Who Shouldn't and Why,"
See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246279,00.html
As with every issue there are those who disagree and believe the N-word shouldn’t be
banned. John Ridley is reported to have argued that any effort to ban the word is actually
insulting to the black community, as it suggests that black people can be bested by six
letters and two syllables.
The people who are accused of using the word indiscriminately, rappers and hip-hop stars
seemed to be bent on continuing to use the word. Ice T was reported to have said “I’m
going to use ni**a till the wheels falls off” according to the report Ice T said “a lot of black
people are too overly concerned with what white people think about them”. See http:
//vh1blog.vh1.com/2007/05/icet_wont_stop_.html
Tupac Shakur, if he was alive would probably have kicked against the ban of the word
Nigga which he defined as: "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished" in the lyrics to
his song Words of Wisdom, on his 1991 album 2Pacalypse Now.
In my opinion I don’t think the word should be banned, it is just an innocent word in a
legitimate language describing or defining a black man which was later hijacked by haters
and used derogatorily. Refer to the meaning of the word above. The word is not different
from the English calling us black which in Latin means Negro.
Racists, haters and prejudicial people are going to find a way of demeaning people
whenever they set their minds to it and that is the light in which Michael Richards
statement should be viewed. See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-
8044789871599060390 his attempt to explain it away cannot hold water because of the
context in which he used the word, he started by saying “…50 years ago we’d have you
upside down with a fucking fork up your ass” a while later he said “you interrupted me pal,
that’s what happens when you interrupt the white man don’t you know?”
There’s no way this was a slip of tongue, and if his excuse is he was angry, things we
harbor in our minds become manifest in moments of anger.
I think those who use the word to mean “my friend” or “my buddy” are actually doing a good
job of taking the stigma out of the word. If you look at the fact that the word at inception
innocently means black before the haters turn it into a word of hatred then you will agree
that if the hatred can be taken out of the word and it’s meaning changed it will take a lot of
sorrow out of the way of our children who would otherwise be hurt if the word is allowed to
retain it’s hateful potency. Language changes and we should not hold people to the dark
ages, that will not necessarily erase the history of what happened to the black man in the
dark age of slavery. We should spare our children the horror that our fathers went through
without taking away from them the significance of being a black man and the historical
feelings of being referred to as a Nigger. We owe them the responsibility of not teaching
mass hatred and while talking about the white man we should remember that the fight to
abolish slavery was not fought by just the black man and even after the abolition of slavery
some whites fought alongside blacks for total emancipation of the black man. When we
group white men or any man of any color together we are not better than those we
disparage. “Whites in another prominent community tried to protect their Black employees
from the whites who were now all over Tulsa looking to kill any Black man or woman.
Some were fearful and turned their maids and chauffeurs over to the mob. Others refused
and had their homes vandalized while shouts of "nigger lover" swelled through the mob.”
See http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/local.cfm?ArticleID=8458 under “Genocide on
'Black Wall Street'”
If those who are in positions of leadership of the black race are serious, there are
thousands and one issue facing the black man that I believe would be worth their time to
mobilize the black people to tackle. As Darryl James observed in his article THE BRIDGE:
The Black Anglo Saxon “*For all the talk of defining ourselves as African Americans, there
are those of us who define ourselves based on the culture we have adopted, which is
mostly European. While most of us pretend to be African American, many of us are really
Black Anglo Saxons. And even some of us who claim to be Afrocentric know little of that
which is intrinsically African.
For example, ask any so-called African American to name three kings or three nations in
Africa . Most of us have nothing that shows an intrinsic African understanding. Yet, even
Italians who can’t speak Italian know about Italy and Sicily , whether they have been there
or not, and many have not. Hell, many Black Anglo Saxons know about Italy and Sicily ,
even though they know nothing of Africa as demonstrated by the wretchedly stupid rappers
who take names of Italian gangsters with pride.
The point is that even the Black Anglo Saxon who loves the rhetoric of being Afrocentric has
no intention of making a real connection. That’s why we hear talk of how we were once
kings and queens, but those same talkers are doing anything but living like the heirs of
royal blood.
And, ask them of Africa today, and they believe that the entire continent is rife with AIDS, civil
wars and poverty. They accept this dismal view of Africa from American news reports, but
have never been to Africa and have never discussed the continent with native Africans.”
I have heard an African American whose dad is African say after all he’s not a slave. An
African American lady once told me that her dad told her not to give her children African
names even when the Dads of these kids are Africans and an African American talked with
such hatred of Africans that is not dissimilar to Michael Richards’ view on black men, he
referred to Africans as “you people”
African Americans are not the only culprit in this regard, I have heard Africans talk of African
American in a derogatory manner. This kind of mutual distrust and disrespect will not
move the black race forward and the black race cannot excel with this kind of attitude, it is a
case of a house divided against itself.
I believe we should look more at ourselves and chart a way forward for the black man. I
believe African Americans as well as “indigenous Africans” should look more at integration
of black man everywhere into Africa and I’m not talking of moving people to Africa . I think
they need to lobby the legislators of African countries to make laws giving citizenship to
Africans in Diaspora that desire same. I believe what Oprah did in South Africa is a step in
the right direction because education is very important to freedom, the right education that
is. I think African countries should build and fund schools in America where African
American children who are interested in African culture and language can go and be
educated.
Educating and integrating ourselves into a system that is African will help us bond, that is
my belief and there is no harm in giving that a shot. If we give ourselves goals and
purposes, if we make our race one to be envied then like the rose it won’t matter if we are
called names because then we shall be assured in our self worth.
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