Should the N-Word Be Erased?

By now, everyone has heard about Kramer's lash at a black audience member for messing with him during a comedy performance. There have been magazines circulating and politicians lecturing about using the word and the repercussions of it. Others have debated back that the word has changed meaning or it can be used by certain groups. One dictionary even agreed to not have the word in their next printing. On an episode of the embarrassingly popular reality show, "I Love New York," New York flipped out when a Latin cast member wanted to call her "negrita," even though he explained to her that it was a term of endearment in his country. In America, many have convinced themselves that it is a term of endearment here as well. So to those who say the word has changed meaning and lost its power, I say to them, "Has there ever been any other word in the English language that has caused such controversy?" The answer is no. I say English, but the origin of the word is from the Latin Word niger. Terms for African Americans have gone from Nigger to Negro to Black to African-American, and for the most part, each term has been accepted in the African-American community. The late James Brown made the song "I'm Black and I'm Proud" to put the stamp of approval on how Blacks should be proud of their culture. Even in today's society, many people of African descent use the terms Black and African-American interchangeably, including myself. But the term nigger has never been equally accepted by us, and especially not mutually accepted by members of other cultural groups.

There is a continuous argument over the end of the word to describe how it is different. The term nigger is supposed to mean lazy and shiftless, but the term nigga is supposed to mean friend. I remember having a debate in an African-American history course, about eight years ago, with a teacher who opposed the word. I tried to use this same translation as a means to my argument, and added on that the term picnic used to mean pick-a-nigger. My rationalization is that if picnic's meaning can change and the origin of the word be lost through the years, then why can't the term nigga? A friend of mine at the time debated that it was an endearing term, like saying shorty or homie. I nodded my head and refused to change my opinion.

That is, until I arrived at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. As segregated as people say Chicago is, I have gone to many Christmas parties and birthday parties with people of other cultures, especially at my father's previous long-term job. I went to Morgan Park High School, a very diverse educational facility with people of Latin descent, Whites, and Blacks. And in all of the time that I was in Chicago for seventeen years of my life, I never heard one White person use the term nigga or nigger. Not even a month after arriving to NMU, though, I heard it repeatedly. The first time I heard it was from a White girl who was rapping to a song on her cd player. I laughed it off and rationalized it as her singing the words. You can't change the words to a song, right? But then I went to a party and a Native American lady used the word in regular conversation. I tried to reason with myself that since she's a minority, it's not so bad. I sat in an English Literature course with a teacher named Dr. Carol Bays who let the class read Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" aloud. After hearing one White guy read nigger from the book, and feeling at least forty eyes on me, being that I was the only Black person in the class, I felt a sudden pressure that the term was somehow wrong. For the next couple weeks of class, I repeatedly raised my hand to read aloud and noticed no one else did. I had the feeling that they noticed how many times the word nigger was on the page and weren't too happy about reading it either. Although I wondered whether they would've been so hesitant to read it if I wasn't around, I appreciated their sympathy nonetheless. I still tried to regard it as a neutral term, considering the student was reading from a book.

But the final straw was when there was a big misunderstanding over the same White lady who sang nigga in a song being accused of stealing a wallet. A pretty good associate of mine, who was a Black male, brought his girlfriend (also Black) with him to the White lady's dorm. He demanded his wallet back, and knowing that he was confronting a female, he knew that his girlfriend would have his back. They searched her room and found nothing, and stormed away laughing about it. Part of the confusion with that situation was that the White lady had a crush on the Black male, so she was hurt that he brought his girlfriend to her dorm. She also didn't appreciate being accused of stealing. I sympathized with her up until she screamed at the top of her lungs, after the couple had long gone, "I don't like you, Nigga!" My head whipped around and I stared in silence. She immediately turned to me and apologized, saying she only said that about him out of anger for the way he'd treated her. But it was too little, too late. Suddenly, I realized that the argument that I'd had in my African-American history class was weak. From then on, I ceased using the word. It's a hard pill to swallow when you learn that something you do is wrong by watching someone else do it. But what was more embarrassing to me was that in a diversity student newspaper, I'd written an article about my view on how the word nigga should be accepted because the meaning had changed, not even a few months after this situation happened. Now, how could I possibly reason that it was wrong for her to use it, if I went on and on in this newspaper about how the meaning has changed? A debate becomes pathetic when a person can't even believe their own original points. Many other things happened to change my views on racism and I transferred to a Historically Black College, Lincoln University, to try to get the Black college experience and learn more about Black culture, which NMU repeatedly shunned.

When I graduated from Lincoln, I came back home with a completely different view on the word and, according to family members, became slightly militant and more politically savvy. Although I hated NMU for all of its terrible memories, it taught me a lot about the ways that racism is ruining this country. So when I heard the news about Kramer, I didn't even flinch. After the lady who screamed right in my face about the friend of mine trying to regain his wallet, nothing could surprise me about how strong that word really is.

But the term is not so cut and dry. When I watch episodes of one of my favorite comic strips, the Boondocks, I cringe a little bit every time Huey or Riley use the word nigga. Aaron McGruder spoke out about how the term is used in everyday conversation and he wanted to keep the dialogue realistic. I couldn't disagree with him. If I walk out the door right now, I can almost guarantee that around my Black associates, friends, and even a few family members, the word will be uttered. When writing my first novel, Change for a Twenty, some of the characters in my book even used the term. I did some heavy thinking before letting the word be used, but after awhile, I couldn't disagree with McGruder. The truth is, the term is popular. When I wrote dialogue from the book and tried to exclude the term, somehow it just didn't flow right and I re-added nigga right back in the book. Not only is the word in books, but it's in Hip Hop songs, a couple R&B songs, and on cable television shows repeatedly. To erase the word from our mouths and memories, the way some politicians like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton suggest, is not going to change the meaning any less. Nigga will never be as accepted as the word picnic because there is still too much emotional baggage with it. It's not realistic to say that Black people can take full advantage of the word and make it so other cultures cannot use it. The only person who can control one's mouth is that person. Even at NMU, I could've walked around threatening White people or knocking White people out every single time I heard the word, but if the word is so strong, shouldn't I be equally hostile with Black people using it? It's not like Black slaves in the past would sit around grinning at each other and calling each other that word. Honestly, if my ancestors were alive today, they'd be aghast that the word is controversially accepted in the Black community.

Do I think it's realistic to erase the term? No. It can't happen. We know it. We won't forget it. It's a waste of time trying to make everybody control their mouths. But can we try to inform others of why it's not an acceptable word to use? Sure. My own experiences at NMU immediately got me to tone down using the word to the point of nonexistence. When writing my next novel, I have no intentions of using the word once. Until a person has reached the point where they feel morally wrong to use the term, nothing will change. I say, keep talking about it, but not in endearing terms, because it's not meant to be a compliment at all. Never was. Never will be. And the more people realize it, the more they won't use it voluntarily.