I wrote this piece a while back...but, due to some recent events and conversations in my life, I am choosing to repost it
Nigger (the word), a brief history!
Contributing writers:
Phil Middleton and David
Pilgrim.
Dr. David Pilgrim, Dept. of Sociology
Ferris State
University, 2001
-*On this date we look
at the history of word “Nigger” in America. This word still sits at
the center of anti-Black verbal distortions.
*Note: some of the content in this writing may be offensive to young
children.
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.
No matter what its origins, by the early 1800s it was firmly established as
a degenerative nickname. In the 21st century, it remains a principal symbol of
white racism regardless of who is using it. Social scientists refer to words
like nigger, kike, spic, and wetback come from three categories: disparaging
nicknames (chink, dago, nigger, etc); explicit group devaluations ("Jew
him down," or "niggering the land"); and irrelevant ethnic names
used as a mild disparagement ("jewbird" for cuckoos having prominent
beaks or "Irish confetti" for bricks thrown in a fight). Racial slurs
(over time) have victimized all racial and ethnic groups; but, no American
group goes through as many racial nicknames as Blacks: coon, tom, savage,
picanniny, mammy, buck, sambo, jigaboo, buckwheat are some. Many of these slurs
became fully traditional pseudo-scientific, literary, cinematic, and everyday
distortions of African Americans. These caricatures, whether spoken, written,
or reproduced in media, and material objects, reflect the extent, the vast
network, of anti-black prejudice.
The word nigger carries with it much of the hatred and disgust directed
toward Black Africans and African Americans. Historically, nigger defined, limited,
made fun of, and ridiculed all Blacks. It was a term of exclusion, a verbal
reason for discrimination. Whether used as a noun, verb, or adjective, it strengthened the stereotype of the lazy, stupid, dirty, worthless nobody. No
other American surname carries as much purposeful cruelty. The following
shortlist is important information on the words use and meaning.
Niggerish: Acting in a lazy and irresponsible manner.
Niggerlipping: wetting the end
of a cigarette while smoking it.
Niggerlover: Derogatory term aimed at whites lacking in the necessary
loathing of blacks.
Nigger luck: Exceptionally good luck, emphasis on undeserved.
Nigger-flicker: A small knife or razor with one side heavily taped to
preserve the user's fingers.
Nigger heaven: Designated places, usually the balcony, where blacks were
forced to sit, for example, in an integrated movie theater or church.
Nigger knocker: Axe handle or weapon made from an axe handle.
Nigger rich: Deeply in debt but flamboyant.
Nigger shooter: A slingshot.
Nigger steak: A slice of liver or a cheap piece of meat.
Nigger stick: Police officer's baton.
Nigger tip: Leaving a small tip or no tip in a restaurant. Nigger in the
woodpile: A concealed motive or unknown factor affecting a situation in an
adverse way.
Nigger work: Demeaning, menial tasks.
Nigger (as a word) is also used to describe a dark shade of color
(nigger-brown, nigger-black), the status of whites that mix together with
Blacks (nigger-breaker, dealer, driver, killer, stealer, worshiper, and looking), and anything belonging to or linked to African Americans
(nigger-baby, boy, girl, mouth, feet, preacher, job, love, culture, college,
music, etc). Nigger is the ultimate American insult; it is used to offend other
ethnic groups. Jews are called white-niggers; Arabs, sand niggers; or Japanese,
yellow-niggers. Americans created a racial hierarchy with whites at the top and
Blacks at the bottom.
Nigga Or Nigger
by Davey D
The
most interesting facet of this last poll was the number of people who are
growing tired of hearing the word 'nigga' being bantered about.. I recall
growing up in the Bronx and constantly having that word being tossed about by
the roughneck Irish kids who resided near Van Courtland Park, Johnson Ave in
Riverdale, Washington Heights and South Broadway in Yonkers.. There were many a
days that some serious racial confrontations broke off-usually as a result of
that N word being thrown about.. It surprises me how candidly the word gets
used today.. especially by those who aren't Black..Like KRS-One says..
'Now we got white kids calling themselves nigga'... What hurts even more is you
have this ridiculous assertion being spouted by some brothers who will point
out that there's a big difference between the word 'Nigger' and 'Nigga'. Hence
when I was growing up I was being called 'Nigger' which is offensive.. but when
some white or Asian kid comes rolling up to me today talking about 'What's up
my Nigga'? I should embrace him because this kid is down with hip hop
culture... Even sadder is you have some brothers who take this word and flip it
so that it empowers them..So now nigga is a good thing... We've internalized so
much negativity it's ridiculous..
This sort of mentality reminds
me of the way some of us celebrate the success of a hip hop concert... Here you
have kids running up and saying things like "Man there was only one fight
during the concert'.. or 'Only one person got shot'.. Normal, civil,
intelligent behavior is so rare nowadays.. that we actually give props to something
that should be an everyday occurrence..What compounds this situation even more
is that we have some very prominent individuals within hip hop who have
literally 'blessed' the word nigga..
My Questions: When did the “N”
word shift from a derogatory hate filled term to one of endearment? I didn’t
get that memo. My question to any self –respecting African American, Black,
Negro, Colored person is: Did your grandmother or mother give birth to a
nigger? If you are unsure ask them. Hopefully you will hear of the struggle to
break free from the word. You will hear how people fought and died to be seen
and thought of as first, human and then equal. You will hear how innocent men,
women and children were killed in the most heinous ways because someone white
wanted to make a point.
Spike Lee drove the point home in
his movie Bamboozled….the movie asks the question Are we so caught up in the
game of “clockin’ dollars” that we are willing to sacrifice our souls? Are we
willing to continue accepting and laughing at the caricatures of our people? Paul Mooney describes the UPN
Network as U-You P-Picka N-Nigger because of it’s modern day minstrel line-up.
It’s time to wake up and shake up America and resume our rightful place.
"We declare our right on
this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given
the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which
we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."
-- Malcolm X
"I am not a racist. I am
against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I
believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such,
regardless of their color."
-- Malcolm X
"The only way we'll get
freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in
the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti,
Cuba -- yes Cuba too."
-- Malcolm X
"When a person places
the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do
to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but
in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what
he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom.
A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . .
or preserve his freedom."
-- Malcolm X
"You don't have to be a
man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human
being."
-- Malcolm X
"A race of people is
like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own
history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never
fulfill itself."
-- Malcolm X
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
Ten Point Platform
& Program
October
1966
WHAT WE WANT
WHAT WE BELIEVE
1. WE WANT
freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
WE BELIEVE that black people will not be free
until we are able to determine our destiny.
2. WE WANT
full employment for our people.
WE BELIEVE that the federal government is
responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income.
We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full
employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen
and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize
and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
3. WE WANT
an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community.
WE BELIEVE that this racist government has
robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two
mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for
slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment in
currency, which will be distributed, to our many communities. The Germans are
now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The
Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the
slaughter of over fifty million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a
modest demand that we make.
4. WE WANT
decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.
WE BELIEVE that if the white landlords will
not give decent housing to our black community, then the housing and the land
should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid,
can build and make decent housing for its people.
5. WE WANT
education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American
society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the
present-day society.
WE BELIEVE in an educational system that will
give to our people knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of
himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to
relate to anything else.
6. WE WANT
all black men to be exempt from military service.
WE BELIEVE that Black people should not be
forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does
not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world
who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of
America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist
police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
7. WE WANT
an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people.
WE BELIEVE we can end police brutality in our
black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to
defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The
Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear
arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for
self- defense.
8. WE WANT
freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and
jails.
WE BELIEVE that all black people should be
released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair
and impartial trial.
9. WE WANT
all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their
peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the
Constitution of the United States.
WE BELIEVE that the courts should follow the
United States Constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The
14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his
peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious,
geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the
court will be forced to select a jury from the black community from which the
black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all-white juries
that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the
black community.
10. WE
WANT land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our
major political objective, a United Nations supervised plebiscite to be held
throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be
allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of black people
as to their national destiny.
WHEN, in the course of
human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and
nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
WE HOLD these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. **That, to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a
new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness. ** Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all
experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. **But, when a long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing
invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government,
and to provide new guards for their future security. **
Power to the People!
