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The word nigger is a highly controversial term used in many countries, specifically those in the British and American political axis, to refer to individuals with dark skin, especially those of African origin who were racially classified by the outdated term Negro. It was once the standard casual English term for those possessed of dark skin.

The word today carries a strong connotation of social inferiority and discrimination, making it pejorative. It is generally considered a racial epithet when used by those who are not of African descent. See the Wiktionary entry Nigger for more relating to this.

Origins

The origin of the word "nigger" is in the Latin "niger," meaning "black." The word, as "niger," entered into Spanish and Portuguese. Early Modern French obtained it from Portuguese where it became "negre" and "negro," respectively. English acquired the word from French, which was manifested in earlier English variants, such as "negar," "neegar," "neger," and "niggor." "Neger" is a current word in both Dutch and German, as well as Scandinavian languages.

The word is thought to have come into its current form via the Southern pronunciation of "negro," which yielded phonetic mistranscriptions as "nigra." For much of its history, until the early 20th Century in America, it was simply descriptive ("nigger" meaning "Black American" in an informal, esp. Southern sense ), and occasioned little controversy among speakers of any ethnicity, save occasional annoyance. It later became symbolic of racial prejudice and racist laws (and lynchings) against Blacks in the American South.

Modern meanings

"Nigger" is almost always pejorative or suspect when used by non-blacks in America, or those without dark skin. It is considered vulgar as well. Several American English dictionaries have labeled it as a vulgarism, including a 1913 Webster's dictionary, which defined "nigger" as "A negro; — in vulgar derision or depreciation." In its pejorative sense, it is a more loaded word than other North American ethnic epithets such as "spic" (for a Latino/Latina), "wop" (for one of Italian origin), "polack" (for one of Polish origin), and "kike" (for a Jew). The only American English terms that come relatively close to "nigger" in terms of their pejorative punch are far more rudely specific terms such as "greaser" or "beaner" for Latino/Hispanics, or "Christ-killer" for Jews.

The pejorative nature of the word can be seen in the related terms "sand nigger" (meaning Arab), "white nigger" (meaning Irishman) or "prairie nigger" (meaning Native Americans). These are people who are clearly not black; the "nigger" part of the terms refer to the opinion of the speaker that Arabic, Irish, and Native American people are similarly inferior.

Surprisingly, "Nigger" is regularly used in a socially-acceptable way by younger African Americans when referring to each other, thus in this context is has become a term of endearment. For example: "What's up, my nigger (or nigga)?" would be acceptable when spoken by one African American to another. "Nigger" is widely understood by African Americans to also mean a fellow traveller, but also an ignorant (socially, or practically unknowledgeable) person, regardless of race. "Nigga" as a term of endearment is also evident among younger white Americans, who have copied this African American locution, and also among other non-white minorities for whom "nigger" is a term of solidarity (with a glamorous black entertainment culture). The term "nigga" has also been inserted to early 21st century hip-hop songs performed by African American artists, sometimes in lyrics which glorifies both the term and "gangstas" (gangsters).

It is worth noting that while the word has been partly reclaimed by some young African Americans, older black Americans tend to consider the term offensive in all contexts, and do not agree that it is ever appropriate to use (or hear) it. A generation gap exists. Among whites, speakers exist who use it casually to refer to African Americans of slave lineage, but most are rural, from poor areas of cities, such as Boston, and/or born before the 1950s. It is an archaism.

"Nigga," as opposed to "nigger," tends to be more gender-specific amongst African American youth, where nigga is used when referring to a male. Females are rarely, if ever, referred to as "nigga." The term is increasingly used among so-called "wiggers" — young white followers of black popular culture (see "Combinations with other words" below) — sometimes with one young white person describing another by the term. Some have attempted to explain this usage as a different, and non-offensive word, "nigga" .

Problems with this use of the word are illustrated in the comedy-drama movie Gridlock'd (1997), which features the use of the word in its affectionate sense by a white character (played by Tim Roth). He is close enough to his black friend (played by Tupac Shakur) for it to go unremarked. But later he uses it when there are others around who he does not know so well, causing a dramatic reaction.

Uses of word

Usage

In the United States, "nigger" was freely, if sometimes fraughtly, used by both Whites and Blacks in the American North, The South and adjacent areas, until the civil rights era of the 1960s, when it became unacceptable in public (but not necessarily private) discourse. A striking usage is in a televised report from the Birmingham police actions, where Dr. Martin Luther King's protesters were countered with dogs and fire hoses. A white female citizen from another Alabama county was interviewed. Apparently stricken, she said, "It's not right. We don't treat niggers like that here." In such locutions, the term, "nigger," is less noteworthy than the political shift. "Nigger" was, for generations of Whites, the childhood term for African Americans in America, though most used "Negro" or "Colored." Among White Southerners of the generation comprising the 1960s, learning not to use the term was an act of deliberate contrition, or at least etiquette.

Today, unless it is used very cautiously, its implications of racism are so strong that use of it is a social taboo in English-speaking countries. Many American magazines and newspapers will not even print "nigger" in full, instead using "n*gg*r," "n——," or simply "the N-word." A Washington Post article on Strom Thurmond's 1948 candidacy for President of the United States went so far as to replace "nigger" with the periphrasis "the less-refined word for Black people."

In Australia, the word is now rarely used in polite speech by urban Whites, in any context. It has, however, seen common use in rural or semi-frontier districts, although the usage was British-Colonial, e.g., applying generically to dark-skinned people of any origin (c.v. Rudyard Kipling). This has led to controversy since Australian Aborigines have started to take the term strongly to heart, in both the pejorative and inclusive senses. See below under Place names.

Literary uses

"Nigger" has a long history of causing controversy in literature. Carl Van Vechten, a White photographer and writer famous as a promoter of the Harlem Renaissance, caused a great controversy by titling his novel Nigger Heaven, in 1926. The controversy centered on the use of the word "nigger" in the title and fueled the sales of the hit novel. Of the controversy, Langston Hughes wrote:

No book could possibly be as bad as Nigger Heaven has been painted. And no book has ever been better advertised by those who wished to damn it. Because it was declared obscene everybody wanted to read it and I'll venture to say that more Negroes bought it than ever purchased a book by a Negro author. Then, as now, the use of the word "nigger" by a White was a flashpoint for debates about the relationship between African American culture and its White patrons.

The famous controversy over Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), a classic frequently taught in American schools, revolves largely around the novel's 215 uses of the word, nigger, referring to Jim, Huck's raft-mate.

One interesting example of its historical use in American English occurs in Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Gold Bug (1843). The narrator and a White character in the story use "negro" to refer to a Black servant, Jupiter, while Jupiter himself uses nigger:

"De bug, Massa Will! --de goole bug!" cried the negro, drawing back in dismay --"what for mus tote de bug way up de tree? --dn if I do!"
"If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take hold of a harmless little dead beetle, why you can carry it up by this string --but, if you do not take it up with you in some way, I shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with this shovel."
"What de matter now, massa?" said Jup, evidently shamed into compliance; "always want for to raise fuss wid old nigger. Was only funnin' anyhow. Me feered de bug! what I keer for de bug?" Here he took cautiously hold of the extreme end of the string, and, maintaining the insect as far from his person as circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend the tree.

A popular children's rhyme may have once contained the word nigger for tiger See: Eenie Meenie.

Agatha Christie's novel, Ten Little Indians, originally appeared as Ten Little Niggers.

Among the classic novels of Joseph Conrad is The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' (1897).

The Québécois book title «Les Negres Blancs de l'Amérique» (the white negros of the Americas, ISBN 2892950678 by Pierre Vallières 1938-1998) invokes an implicit analogy between linguistic and racial discrimination. The book was originally published in the 1960s, during the Quiet Revolution which preceded the October Crisis and the growth of French Canadian separatism in Québec.

Nigger in popular culture

The comedian and activist Dick Gregory used the word as the title of his best-selling autobiography in 1964. In 1967, Muhammad Ali explained his refusal to be drafted to serve in the Vietnam War by saying, "I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me nigger," implying that White Americans had, and that he was offended by the racist use of the word, as well as the racial oppression associated with it. In 1972, John Lennon released a song, "Woman is the Nigger of the World", implying that as Black people were discriminated against in some countries so were women globally. Pierre Vallières wrote a book in 1968 called Les Nègres blancs de l'Amérique comparing the oppression of French-Canadians to that of Blacks in the Southern United States. When it was translated into English it was published under the title The White Niggers of North America.

Comedian Lenny Bruce in a comedy routine used the word repeatedly, suggesting that the more it was used and heard, the less power it would have.

Comedian Richard Pryor, whose albums included That Nigger's Crazy and Bicentennial Nigger, vowed to never use the word again after a trip to Africa in the 1980s.

In 1988, the album Straight Outta Compton was released by the hip hop group N.W.A. ("Niggaz With Attitude"). Although they abbreviated it in all official contexts, their positive self-referential use of the word caused a great deal of controversy in America over the language and lyrics of hip hop.

Black American comedian Chris Rock's 1996 television special Bring the Pain and 1997 album Roll with the New included a segment known as "Niggas vs Black People", which used the former word to describe a detrimental segment within the black community. In contrast with productive "Black people," Rock cast "niggas" as "low-expectation-havin'" individuals -- proud to be ignorant, violent, and on welfare . The controversy of this piece, which played upon racist stereotypes of black people, was such that it led Rock to cease performing it.

Conversely, white American comedian George Carlin performs a short routine, part of his oeuvre concerning the use and context of words, and the fact that some people's uses of words trouble us because we think they're being racist, wherein he closes with "We don't mind when Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy uses it. Why? Because we know they're not racists. They're Niggers!" This punchline never fails, on cable comedy broadcasts, to draw gales of laughter, and the directors almost invariably focus on an African-American audience member -- who is laughing uproariously.

Since the coining of the phrase "The N-Word" (see below), some television broadcasters have retroactively added the word "nigger" to their lists of taboo words, thereby censoring movies and television programs from the past in which the word is used, no matter what the context or effect on the program. For example, television broadcasts of the movie Die Hard with a Vengeance which originally featured a character being forced to carry a sign saying "I hate niggers" around Harlem, are altered so that the sign now says "I hate everybody" which is considered less offensive - but, critics argue, renders the scene less effective. The comedy series All in the Family, perhaps due to its classic status, is rarely censored even though the "N-word" is used frequently. On the other hand, Mel Brooks' anti-racism comedy, Blazing Saddles is rarely shown on American commercial television anymore due to the pervasive use of the word (though, like All in the Family, the movie's serious intent was to call attention to the issues of racism through satire; a fact discussed at length by Brooks when the film's 30th anniversary edition DVD was released in 2004).

Place names

Because the word was freely used for many years, the United States has many official place-names containing the word "nigger." Examples include Nigger Bill Canyon, Nigger Hollow, and Niggertown Marsh. In 1967, the United States Board on Geographic Names changed the word nigger to Negro in 143 specific place names, but use of the word has not been completely eliminated.

In April 2003, there was a stir in Australia over the naming of part of a stadium in Toowoomba "E.S. Nigger Brown Stand." "Nigger Brown" was the nickname of Toowoomba's first international rugby player. Edward Stanley Brown had a particularly fair complexion and hence was given the nickname "Nigger," in a similar way that a tall person might be called "Shorty." He also used the shoe polish brand "Nigger Brown." The stand was named in the 1960s. As noted above, the word has very little offensive character in Australia. Brown himself was happy with the nickname; in fact it is written on his tombstone. Most local Aboriginal members condone its use in this context. This didn't stop civil rights activist Stephen Hagan taking the local council responsible to court over the issue. Hagan lost the court case at the district and state level, and the High Court ruled that the matter was not of federal jurisdiction. The Federal Government cited the High Court ruling on a lack of federal jurisdiction as its legal justification for continued inaction. (Hagan has also tried changing other "racial names" such as the Coon brand of cheese.)

Avoiding offense

"The N-Word"

The euphemistic term "the N-word" became a part of the American lexicon during the racially polarizing trial of O.J. Simpson, a retired African American football player charged with – and ultimately acquitted of – a widely publicized double murder. One of the prosecution's key witnesses was Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who initially denied using racial slurs, but whose prolific and derogatory use of the word "nigger" on a tape recording brought his credibility into question. According to Fuhrman he was using the word in a fictional story he was writing.

Members of the media reporting on and discussing his testimony started using the term "the N-word" instead of repeating the actual word, presumably as a way to avoid offending audiences (and advertisers). The euphemism was quickly adopted by Americans as a generally non-offensive way to refer, for whatever reasons, to one of the most generally offensive words in American English.

The euphemism is most often used in constructions like: "He called me the N-word" or "I can't believe she said the N-word." (This form mimics other euphemisms for offensive words such as "the F-word" for fuck, the less common "the S-word" for shit, and other on-the-fly formations for other words generally regarded as offensive.)

Near-homophones

The words niggardly ("miserly") and snigger ("to laugh derisively") do not refer either to Black people or to characteristics or behavior attributed to Black people, nor do they have any etymological connection with the word nigger. Many people are ignorant of this, however, and so refuse to use these words and take offense to their usage. David Howard, a white city official in Washington, D.C., was briefly driven from his job in January 1999 when he used niggardly in a fiscal sense while talking with African American colleagues, who protested his use of the word.

Revisionist usage

In the United Kingdom the word was in common use throughout the first half of the twentieth century to denote a shade of dark brown. "Nigger" was famously the name of a Black Labrador belonging to the RAF Second World War hero Wing Commander Guy Gibson. The dog died before the 617 Squadron's 1943 raid on the Ruhr dams (the "Dam Busters raid"), and "Nigger" was adopted as the radio code word signaling the destruction of the Möhne dam. Because of the modern connotations of the name, the British television broadcaster ITV now tries to reduce offence by cutting some scenes including the dog when it broadcasts the film Dam Busters. This has been condemned by some as "revisionist", although the edited version apparently produced fewer complaints than a previous uncensored broadcast. However, this scene has probably been viewed more times than any other part of the movie. It was worked into the background of the infamous hotel-room sequence in the Pink Floyd movie The Wall, during which the word nigger can be plainly heard coming from the television.

Rudyard Kipling's Just So Story "How the Leopard Got His Spots" tells of how an Ethiopian and a leopard, who are originally white, decide to paint themselves for camouflage. The story originally included a scene in which the leopard, who now has spots, asks the Ethiopian why he doesn't want spots as well. The Ethiopian's original reply, "Oh, plain black's best for a nigger," has been changed in many modern editions to read, "Oh, plain black's best for me."

Nigger Versus Nigga

A common place of contention amongst black youth (and indeed, the youth in general) is the usage of the word nigga vs. nigger. Nigga is often used synonymously with, and in the same sense as, other less controversial slang words such as dude and guy. Many older black people argue that the change in pronunciation is not enough to successfully separate the word as young people would have it used from its older, more offensive roots. In fact, this claim is not without merit, since certain non-rhotic regional pronuniciations of the words render them virtually identical in pronunciation. Thus, it would be impossible for someone in such a situation to determine whether the phrase "what up, my nigga" was an insult or an endearment. In some places, the usage of nigga is closely monitored, to the extent that it would be an insult to say "Hey you niggas" (grammatically analogous to "Hey you guys") but saying "what up my niggas" (a usage which would seemingly connote condescendence and superiority) would be perfectly acceptable.

"Nigga," if one considers it as an entity separate from "nigger," may be even more complex in usage, because generally its use as an endearment or an insult is dependent almost solely on the listener's interpretation when spoken to. Generally, it is best to use the word only in situations where one is absolutely sure that it is acceptable (such as after hearing it used casually by the person one is talking to.)

Combinations with other words

The term "wigger" or "whigger" is used to describe a Caucasian who emulates urban-African American culture. The word "wigger" is usually offensive. It is a portmanteau word combining "white" and "nigger". Similarly other portmanteaus words formed from "nigger", usually offensive, are used to describe other non-blacks who emulate African American culture. These include, combining "nigger" with "chink" (of chinese origin), to produce "chigger" (a chigger is also a type of mite, and a type of flea, both of whose bites causes intense itching), with "Korean", to produce "kigger," and with "spic, to produce "spigger". Also, when combined with "Turk" the two words form "Tigger".

Related terms

"Nigra," which is the way "Negro" is pronounced by some people, was once considered a more polite way to refer to a Black person. While White people in the United States North used the form "nigga" for "nigger."

"Coon" was also once used in the United States as a word for Black people, but it and other slang terms formerly seen as playful and even affectionate (circa 19th Century-1940s), such as "dinge," "smoke," "spook," "spade," "midnight", "Bucky" and "darky," are no longer remotely acceptable or in general use.

In some White ethnic subcultures, other terms are used, the origins of which are not directly based on the word "nigger." For example, Italian Americans often use the word "moolie," which is a shortened form of "mulignane," a dialectical variant of "melanzana," the Italian word for eggplant (because the eggplant has a dark "skin" surrounding it).

In London Cockney rhyming slang certain words, used in context, can be racially insulting (e.g.: "egg" and "spoon" ), but as these rhymes do not tend to be in use for long, documenting them tends to be a historical exercise. A more recent racist term for an Afro-Caribbean individual, is "sooty."

Jews sometimes use the Yiddish word "schvartze" when referring to Black people, although whether the intent is derogatory or not has been a subject of lively and contentious debate (comedian Jackie Mason once referred to then-New York City mayor David Dinkins as "a fancy schvartze with a moustache," creating much controversy at the time; however, many Jews have insisted that the word "schvartze" simply means "black" in any context and is not intended as a racial slur). Consider that the German word for "black" is "schwarz," or indeed "Schwarze/Schwarzer" for "a black person" (roughly pronounced the same as the Yiddish word), and that Yiddish is very closely related to German. The current usage of the word among English and Yiddish-speakers is, however, more likely a matter of individual intent and context. Related to the Yiddish and German words is a Jewish surname, Schwartz. It is, however, an immigrant term equivalent to the Italian term, "mulignane." Its popularity in public discourse depends on generational respect for a specific immigrant tradition.

Other alternatives that have been used are "chocolate drop," "jiggaboo," "pickaninny," "spook," "sambo," "ted," "wog", spear chucker, porch monkey, yard ape, Goodwill Gorilla, "Buckwheat", jungle bunny, watermelon, Mississippi Wind-Chime, shoe-shine boy, welfare monkey, moon cricket, Uncle Tom or simply "black bastard." Each of these words is generally considered to be utterly unacceptable today.

The most common terms currently considered acceptable in modern English usage are "colored person", "person of color", and simply "black." Some write the last with a capital-B (e.g. "Black"), although this is sometimes interpreted as a sign of pretension. (By contrast, references to "the White race" with a capital-W rarely appear outside of white supremacist literature.) Overly politically correct usage even objects to "black", in favor of "African American" - but this too has its faults, of course (not all black Americans identify themselves with Africa, and there are rather a lot of black people in the world - even in America, as tourists or temporary residents - who are not American citizens.)

References

"Nigger Heaven and the Harlem Renaissance." Robert F. Worth, African American Review. Fall 1995. 29(3):461-473.

Further reading

  • Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, by Randall Kennedy (ISBN 0375421726)

See also

External links

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