In third grade, I went to George B. Armstrong Elementary School, where Aftrican American History Month was highly celebrated. The three-story school was decorated with research projects and I was Harriet Tubman in a play about the underground railroad. The curiculum was full of activities dedicated to African-American History for the entire month. It became my favorite time of the school year.
Because of this foundation, I respected African Americans to a great extent. It broke my heart when I came across racists. As I got older, I didn’t hear the word “African American”, “Jamaican” and specific races so much, I only heard the word “black”. And honestly, it took me such a long time to be able to call African Americans that. It wasn’t until I started coming across people who weren’t African American, and mistaking them for it that I used the word “black”. They were Haitian, French, Barbadians and people who didn’t consider themselves African. As a sixth grader, there was no way I could distinguish them at that time. I came across friends of lighter skin that didn’t know their race, so I couldn’t call them Polish, German, Swedish, or Italian. Everyone else started calling them “white” and “black”, and they didn’t seem to have a problem with that.
Growing up, I never thought that the N-word would be something so casual. It was so insulting to African Americans, how could it be used without intentionally trying to break someone? It was a word that was used as a reason to kill someone, it was a word that was used to make people feel ashamed of who they were. During the African-American Civil Rights Movement and before that, it was used to bring down a type of human race. When I entered Niles West, the word became so popular in ganster rap, and others picked up on the songs, they changed the spelling by sometimes replacing the G’s with Q’s and the E’s and R’s with A’s and sometime’s H’s, and I felt it became word with positive connotations.
“Rappers use it casually and in the black community is considered a term of endearment, but it really isn’t,” administrative assistant Phyllis Coleman said. “I never heard that word used in my home, but I always heard it from friends. I can’t say that it bothered me when I was younger, but as I got older, I realized how offensive it it was.”
“My N-Word,” “Thanks, Gabby. You’re a true N-Word,” and all of a sudden, it’s posh. The N-Word was something you wanted to be called, it started being associated with a type of respect, but I still felt uncomfortable saying it. I thought, “This would pass, people will realize how horrible the word is.” It’s almost been four years since I was introduced to this kind of word, and I only started becoming comfortable hearing it and saying it maybe a week ago, but I’m still confused.
Senior and treasurer of Black Student Union Hameenah Williams said she won’t use the N-word so lightly.
“I would not use the N-word. They way I grew up, my mom and aunts and uncles made sure I knew what it meant and why a word like that shouldn’t be used. The way we all saw it was, people fought in past to make sure that word wouldn’t be used, it had a degrading notion to it. People literally got worked up about what it used to mean, ” Williams said.
On the other hand senior Kyle Kent believes there are appropriate ways to use the word.
“As long as you’re not ignorant to the meaning of the word and you feel that you’re using it in an appropriate way, then sure, use it. Make sure you know what you’re saying,” Kent said.
Junior Paul Ceneac said people are forgetting about the past.
“The people who use it don’t have an understanding of the history of the word. It’s a word full of hate. It’s not a good thing that the word is starting to have a positive connotation with everything, it makes people forget, there was actually a big movement to get rid of that word in the early 90s and now it’s just misunderstood because of rap music,” Ceneac said.
Even though I don’t think using the word is right, I’m not going to preach to you about how you should stop using it. But, the next time you decide to use the N-word, ask yourself what you’re doing. Do you mean well when you’re calling someone that? If you are, you’re being ignorant of the past. You’re saying it’s okay that we had slavery and had so many people die from racism.
Kyle Kent • Mar 2, 2014 at 6:56 PM
Just to clarify, I never intended for it to seem as though I am an advocate of the use of the word or any other word that has the potential to be seen as offensive. Personally I don’t use it. However, I meant to highlight the ability the word has to conjure a sense of similarity and an air of understanding, essentially a welcoming interpretation, (although not all together a positive connotation).
Matt H • Feb 28, 2014 at 10:18 PM
Note to every body. The origin of the n-word has no offensive meaning whatsoever, but the way that Europeans used it to refer to blacks from Africa in a position of subjugation(slavery) made it offensive. The word was used to dehumanize and put down Africans.
jim • Mar 1, 2014 at 11:23 PM
Invalid, they call each other the N-word like it’s synonymous with bro. When they do that, other people catch on. The source of the problem is African-Americans themselves who are unfamiliar with the true intent of the word. It is not necessarily their fault but their poorly educated friends, parents, or guardian’s. I see two possible solutions: either everyone refers to African-Americans with the N-word, or no one does, simple as that.
Matt • Feb 28, 2014 at 10:13 PM
Black people use the n-word to refer to one another a lot of the time, and I don’t think it’s necessarily good. If you think about they were the ones specifically referred to as n-word’s since slavery, so it makes sense for that it still exists among them. I don’t actually believe other races should think its ok to use it, at least not habitually because most of the time they don’t understand the true origin and meaning of the word. They only know it from mainstream rap music. If the n-word becames common lingo amongst society this would be bad. Black people first need to stop reffering to each other as n-words.
jim • Feb 27, 2014 at 11:19 PM
what about the K word or cracker? How about we determine whether or not we use any racial or religious slurs rather than picking one.
pete • Feb 27, 2014 at 5:12 PM
“They were Haitian, French, Barbadians and people who didn’t consider themselves African”. Black people from Haiti or barbados were originally from Africa for it was involved in the slave trade. Also black doesn’t just refer to African Americans. It refers to anyone of the race.
Gabrielle Abesamis • Feb 27, 2014 at 5:18 PM
Thank you for the comment! I’m well aware of that, but despite the slave trade, I have Haitian friends and French friends that do not consider themselves African American. In fact, they’ve corrected me themselves.
pete • Feb 27, 2014 at 6:10 PM
nice article. I misread the line.