Dealing with the N word
Photograph of Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King jr. (ca. 1955) Mrs. Rosa Parks altered the negro progress in Montgomery, Alabama, 1955, by the bus boycott she unwillingly began. National Archives record ID: 306-PSD-65-1882 (Box 93). Source: Ebony Magazine Ελληνικά: Φωτογραφία της Rosa Parks με τον Dr. Martin Luther King jr. (περ. 1955.) Español: Fotografía de Rosa Parks con Martin Luther King jr. (aprox. 1955). Français : Photographie Rosa Parks (ca. 1955) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am reasonably conversant with the history of American slavery. As conversant as someone who is not a student of history, from another country, can be. I know about people such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. I’ve seen the images of black people being burnt alive or strung up. I see the stupid, stupid bumper stickers “2012 Don’t re-nig”. I understand the horror many feel at the use of the word nigger. I won’t allow the use of the word in our house.
Yet how do I get the message across to young people who have never learnt the history, who have no idea what happened in those dark days, no idea what Martin Luther King fought for? No idea that black people weren’t allowed to sit on a bus under certain circumstances? These kids just hear music and think the word is cool because it is being used by black artists. They think the American entertainers are cool. I can’t ban the music, it is everywhere. Even the Australian kids who use the word are using it in what they think is a “cool” way because they have no idea of the history either.
In Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the word is defined as “member of any dark skinned race. Taken to be offensive.” Dictionary.com says the word “is now probably the most offensive word in English. Its degree of offensiveness has increased markedly in recent years, although it has been used in a derogatory manner since at least the Revolutionary War. Definitions 1a, 1b, and 2 represent meanings that are deeply disparaging and are used when the speaker deliberately wishes to cause great offense.”
My Chambers Dictionary agrees. I remember being on a train in Melbourne and hearing two black teenagers using the word a couple of years ago. I wanted to tell them not to, but figured I might not get a great reaction. I worried about the fact I was white and they were black. With my own kids, I’m not white or black, I’m Mum.
The word even sounds bad. Say it to yourself. It is harsh, almost guttural. There is nothing about the sound of the word that implies a compliment.
I almost understand the younger generations in the USA attempting to ”re-badge” the word to wear it as a badge of pride. Take something that was bad and make it good. A “We’ll show you” approach, if you like. I’m sorry, it doesn’t work. I don’t think the word can ever be “good”.
One thing that astounded me was a sentence from the bumper-sticker woman: “I’ve helped black families…to guide them in the right direction.” REALLY? Ms Smith, I’m not so sure YOUR direction is so correct, to be perfectly honest with you. She is also unaware that the word means black people – according to her, it means “a low down, lazy, sorry, low down person. That’s what the N word means.” Could have fooled me. Of course, not being American, I have not idea what a “low down” person is either, although I can hazard a guess!
In our home we had a discussion about the word the other night when it came up in conversation over dinner. Then I noticed the bumper sticker media coverage. This article has been stewing in my mind ever since. I’m still not sure what exactly I am writing, but this is part of life in a new land, part of exposure to different cultures. Adapting, working out what is acceptable and what is not.
These days “gangsta” and the N word seem almost synonymous in the popular media. In the first few months of exposure, the boys suddenly seemed to swap thinking becoming a doctor and an engineer was cool, to thinking “gangsta” was cool. Not exactly what we, as parents, had in mind at all. Hopefully the novelty will wear off and their own culture will again rise to the fore. We are staying on top of any signs of acceptance of this negativity.
I have my own thoughts about the whole process (or lack thereof) of the emancipation in the USA. I won’t go into detail here for two reasons:
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I am an outsider, looking in (neither black nor American),
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I am not an anthropologist or a psychologist.
I will however make a couple of observations. One of my closest friends is an African-American and she visited me in Australia. I took her to an African restaurant. She was really very hesitant to go – she had never met an actual African.
I also know from the personal account of an African living in the USA that person does not have one African-American friend. This is not the first time I have heard similar accounts. I find this very sad.
Friends from Ghana tell me they are always shocked when they watch TV programs about Africa, as if everyone lives swinging from trees (I am quoting). When my family came home, people asked me had they ever lived in a house before.
Of course, none of my thinking answers my original question: how to handle the N word with my children. I know what I will do. I’ll wing it. Parents spend a lot of their life winging it in one way or another. I just don’t want my kids thinking this word is cool in any way and I want to make sure they have at least an appreciation of the history behind it and respect for the people involved. The people who were burnt alive, who were whipped, raped, shot and bought and sold like cattle. I would strive to achieve this with any child, but I don’t want our kids being under the mistaken belief this is an innocent word. It is a word that carries very heavy history with it. No, it is not their personal history, but it is the history of many from their part of the world.
It is not cool and it is not funny. Kids, I know you will read this. When you are ready, I will give you appropriate documentaries to watch. In the meantime, remember THAT word is banned in THIS house.
As for the bumper sticker, I will pass you over to Dr Paul Lehman, who has written much more effectively on that particular topic than I ever could in his article Anti-Obama bumper sticker underscores fear and bigotry.
MLK said I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” Let us hope one day the world will rise up too.
Reblogged this on Yote yanayonihusu – Lusajo L.M..
Enjoyed reading this. As a sometimes blissful baby boomer I had until recently thought the worst of racism had been dealt with. That we now lived in a better more intelligent if not perfect world. Sadly as your article rightly shows there is more for us all to improve on.
Thank you Peter. I would have put myself in the same blissful baby boomer category, were it not for having a black american friend had having visited the USA a few times and learnt the odd thing or two. I also read Sidney Poitier’s memoir of moving to the USA and some of the observations he made were enlightening.
We have indeed come a long way, yes, but there is more to be achieved, especially in some parts of the world.
You covered a lot on the subject so I will reserve comment…. too much to say and not enough time. Good job!
The “good job” means a lot, Elizabeth, thank you. We have this situation where the kids just had no prior exposure. So it is a little different than kids raised in the USA, Canada or the UK (and other places, I am sure).
It’s a very unpleasant word to most ears these days . . . I would never use it.
Thanks Nancy. Glad to see you are out of the “sin bin”!
I completely agree with you Robyn that I don’t think the N word will ever be acceptable but I do want to raise one point.
In the UK we rightly have very strict laws against Racism.. As a former nurse and now Social Worker I have worked with people from probably most culturals and a very enriching experience it has been but.. I have come across a few individuals who have gone to the other extreme now ( people I have worked with as colleagues and also service-users ) who play the race card usually if they cannot get their own way or don’t like what someone is telling them.
These are usually unpleasant people ( and would be whatever their cultural background) but they don’t help the fight for equality.
One woman I worked with objected to me calling a blackboard a blackboard.. The board was black in colour and we used white chalk to write on it !!! ( this is a while ago!!) what else would I call it?? It was an accurate description. When I asked her why she objected she said it was racist when I asked why she couldn’t answer me !
When I lived in Ireland ( which I did for 25 years because I married an Irishman ) I was very near the border between North and South and the family I married into was a protestant one. I remember when my daughter was a baby my late ex father-in-law used the term “papist” about an IRA supporter on TV and I forbade him using that word in my house because he used it in a derogatory fashion.
He didn’t use it again ( though he did in his own house) but before you think of him as a bad man he was actually not. He would do anything for his fellow man and was loved by both sides of the community.
He had seen much death amongst family and friends throughout his life caused by the IRA so his life experiences formed his opinion.. I’m not saying that’s right just telling it as it is..
( gawd I’ll stop now … I hope this doesn’t cause an uproar! )
Hellen thank you for sharing your experiences and I agree with you, some people, thankfully in my experience few and far between, just do not help for whatever reasons.
I ban a friend of Mr O’s from using the term “colonial masters” in this house too, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
Hellen, the other thing I agree with you on or should I say I think you are agreeing with me on (whichever!) is that equality doesn’t imply sameness. The classic example, for me, is gender equality. Males and females are NOT the same and never will be, but we can sure as hell have equality. Yet we still celebrate our differences: otherwise the birth rate would have dropped dramatically many years ago!
Ethnic variations are similar: we are equal but different.
Absolutely Robyn.. we should celebrate difference rather trying to homogenise..
However equality between the sexes doesn’t mean the right for women to hold down a full time job AND do all the housework and child rearing !!!
I most definitely agree with that!
I am lucky that Nigerian culture requires children learn by DOING, so everyone is rostered something, including Daddy. We just couldn’t manage otherwise 6 people is quite a number in one house! Entirely different if I was a stay-at-home Mum, but I’m not, and I won’t be for a while (unless the book sells exceptionally well).
Which I hope it will
So do we!
Oh my! How could people think that your family hadn’t lived in a house before?
i don’t know how I feel about people of colour calling themselves names. I work with Aboriginal people and they use a lot of interesting words to describe themselves. I kinda think they have the right to describe themselves how they want to but I also wonder whether it’s part of the conditioning and disadvantage.
There’s a long way to go.
Very long way to go in many places, Narelle.
As for why people thought they hadn’t lived in a house – well, what do you see on TV about Africa? Not a lot of houses!
Did you see my http://teamoyeniyi.com/2012/03/01/i-married-her-father/ I think you will find that interesting.
Lovely post Robyn. I´m sure your kids will understand that they shouldn´t use that ugly word when they watch films about that era of American history and the struggles African Americans went through. I also feel most rappers shouldn´t be allowed to use certain words and swear words in their songs, but it seems to be “cool” to be able to say anything, and kids just follow them.
As for questions if your family had ever lived in a house, I had to laugh! When I lived in Germany, various people on hearing I had come from South Africa, were either surprised I was white, asked if we had houses or lived in straw huts or asked if we lived among the wild animals. “Yes I would tell them, we have lions and elephants roaming around in our garden!” I think ignorance comes from not having traveled, from media misinformation, not having read about the world…
Well, Sami, if it makes you feel any better, I know someone who travelled to the USA and was asked if she rode kangaroos to school!
I think rappers wouldn’t use those words IF they had accurate and adequate history education in school. It seems to me, as an outsider looking in, that much of the historical detail is “white-washed” in history class. The human race loves to ignore the past if that past is deem no longer appropriate or fashionable. Unfortunately, the past results in the present – if the past were different, so would be the present. We need to acknowledge and understand the past if we ever want to move to a better future.
I know for a fact that a friend of mine in the USA fought to prevent her kids being “bused out” of the school district they lived in (white) to a “suitable” black school so 30-odd years ago. And that is in our lifetimes!
To me, every time I hear that word (especially when said by a black person), it’s like a slap in the face – like they’re still holding a grudge against me for what happened in the past, just because I’m white. If they took the time to get to know me, they’d discover that my family has been on this continent (North America) less time than they have. Most of my direct ancestors have immigrated within the past 150 years – so around the same time as, or just after, the Civil War.
I’ve never used that word to describe one of them, even if I’ve been hurt by one of them. I know several African-Americans, and one of them is so very dear to me – he’s the big brother I always wanted but never had. I can’t imagine my life without these wonderful, precious people.
It’s so sad when they put themselves down, and don’t even realize that they’re doing it.
I do think it is perhaps a case of, as Lisa said earlier, trying to take the word back like gay people did with “queer”. But I believe it doesn’t work with this particular word because of the history behind it. The history behind the two words are entirely different. Yes, gay people were and still are discriminated against. However, they were never treated in the same terrible ways.
What worries me the most is, again referring to Lisa, this perception that being smart is trying to be white. That is NOT the belief where my children come from, essentially an all black population. Why the difference? I don’t know the answer.
Symantec was, for many years, lead by John W. Thompson. I don’t for a minute think he was ever trying to be white, he was just being John W. Thompson!
Robin, what a dilemma. I blogged a bit on the subject some months ago here: http://bit.ly/GJLhiG
My personal feeling is, if a word still has the power to hurt, in certain contexts, it still has the power to hurt, period.
It is weird being on the outside, so to speak, and hearing another person speak disparagingly of her/his own people. I had a Jewish person once tell me, “ALL Jewish people cheat on their taxes,” and I just stared at her and said, “Well, I know a lot of honorable Jewish people who would never dream of such a thing. I’m sorry if those in your circle behave differently.”
“It is weird being on the outside, so to speak, and hearing another person speak disparagingly of her/his own people.” I agree! It is, so very much weird. Stereotyping one’s own negatively is very strange. Then again, are we all not all “one’s own”?
Just read your article – Excellent!
I have a feeling you will wing it as you always do – and they will fly in the right direction…eventually.
Thanks, Jo! I am sure they will, they are all bright kids. It is just something e have to deal with to keep them heading in the right direction!
This is a great post, Robin, and much needed. My experience as a white American is that white families, however well-meaning, DO NOT teach their children to handle racial issues in an intelligent or wise manner. (I include our own in this assessment, but fortunately that has begun to change in the last few years.) We pretend we’re “colorblind” –will go through hoops to describe a person of color by some minutia of detail instead of saying simply, “the Asian/Black/Etc. girl who sat in the middle.” But being colorblind sends an implicit message that race is something shameful to talk about. So all kids can do is replicate the confusing, demeaning messages they pick up by osmosis. They may feel subtly ashamed of being white and not know why. Or vaguely accused about things that happened decades ago. This leads to defensiveness, the “you’re too sensitive” whites level against people whose experience is so different from ours we can’t make an accurate judgement…etc. ad nauseum
I’m so glad you wrote this. I will definitely share it.
I always say equality does not equate to sameness. I do not believe we should all pretend we all look alike. We don’t! So the colourblind approach doesn’t work and only makes things worse, in my opinion. Facts, deal with facts. I agree with you that ignoring ethnicity (we are all one race, the human race – I think that helps) does somehow imply it is something shameful. You are black? Fact of life! I am white? Fact of life! You are Indian? Fact of life! Absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
Robyn–I agree with you on just about all of the above, and I am a non-white American,(black/white biracial, as you know). What I tell my kids about the N word is that it is “the word that people who hate black people use to refer to black people.” I do not exempt rap artists and other black entertainers who freely toss the N word around from that description. When blacks use the word, I hear it as an expression of self-loathing.
This is different from the way the gay community seems to have successfully taken back the word “queer”–so it is non longer an epithet, but an expression of take-that! pride. When blacks use the N word–even in a jokey situation–it speaks of deep internalized racism. It comes from the same place as the impulse of “cool” black kids who tell smart black kids to “stop acting white.” As if to be smart is to be un-black! It makes me so angry.
And this is the first I have heard of that bumper sticker. OMG. *Shakes head in exasperation* Thank you for another amazing post that I will now share.
Lisa, thank you so much for sharing your perspective. I thought of you as I wrote this, actually, because I often wonder how do the mixed people/kids feel about all this?
I agree with you about the impulse of “cool” black kids who tell smart black kids to “stop acting white.” As if to be smart is to be un-black! It makes me so angry.
That definitely does seem to be the case in some ways and like you I hate it. Our kids came from Africa with motivation to be the best they can and I don’t want negative influences telling them they aren’t supposed to be motivated! It is ridiculous and so against their background and THEREFORE also against the background of black Americans, if they delved into their histroy properly.
This is a really great post, and you’ve made a few fantastic points! Being neither black nor white, but human (as the colour of my skin does not define WHO I am) I think that the media and these super duper rap stars have taken things a little too far. I don’t understand why these rap stars would want to use the N word in their songs … it’s kinda like promoting the word, trying to make the word good … which in my lifetime will never be. When I was a child, and my mother was busy work 50hr weeks to support the family, I had a wonderful African-Canadian family that looked after me. I didn’t see them as black, I saw this family as my friends, as my babysitter and as my family. She taught me plenty about her stuggles being a black woman in Canada at the time, I was young an naive and it took me a great deal of years to fully appreciate what she had said. The N word was one word that was forbidden from my household and from her household. It’s a disgusting word that makes me cringe when I hear it. Thanks for bringing up such an important topic which I think todays society has completly forgotten about.
Jennifer, thank you for the wonderful sharing and the support. I was a bit hesitant to push the “publish” button in case I upset anyone, but this puzzle is part of the journey for us.