When I looked up the definition of the word nigger online at Dictionary.com I found the results peculiar to say the least. Nigger is noted as a derivative of the Portuguese word Negro, meaning black. It also notes the sound shifts in the pronunciation of the word in varying regions. In the south Negro switched to Nigra, in the north Nigra shifted to Nigger.
The word nigger became derogatory not because of what it was defined as being, but because of what we were defined as being. In the eyes of most whites during the periods of slavery, to be black was to be ignorant and inferior. Their superiority was in the chains that kept us in bondage. The superior conquers the inferior and we were a conquered people. Whatever definitive term we were labeled would have meant to be ignorant and inferior because in their eyes we were that. To be black meant that, to be African meant that, to be Negro meant that, to be colored meant that. It was not a sentiment that was confined to the term nigger.
Words do not define themselves; people define the meanings of words. It is my belief that our refusal to define our own reality is indicative of our powerlessness as Americans. A word can be defined as one thing, White Americans use it in such a manner that it then becomes defined by their usage, but when we do the same thing the same rules don't apply; why?
Could it be that we've chosen to suppress the spirit of black independence in exchange for integration into white America and the word nigger makes us feel so inferior that it becomes abundantly clear that we are not, and may never be viewed as equals, which in turn threatens the survival of the idea of integration? I do not believe that you can take 400 years of oppression, many more of segregation, more of discrimination, fuse it into one word, burry it and march on to racial harmony.
Today we proudly boast about being black without acknowledging its negative aspects or the insidious ways in which it was used to demonize us as a people. Black; a term that among other things is defined as being: deliberately harmful, inexcusable, sullen or hostile, threatening, without any moral quality or goodness, evil and wicked, we boast as proud of being. In American media outlets, black has always been associated with being "bad" and doing "wrong" why is it okay for us to allow ourselves to be defined by that?
Black Power, "say it loud, I'm Black and I'm proud" we disassociated the word from what they defined it as being, and redefined it as representation of what we saw ourselves as, which was: beautiful, powerful, soulful, and ancient. Black Power was the power to define our own reality, but that was a concept thought up by those who were seeking black independence, people like Stokely Charmichal, who was an integrationist until he came to the realization that there would be no equality for blacks in integration until there were first black independence and solidarity, which we still haven't achieved. Black power wasn't about what black meant to America as much as it was about what it meant to us Black people.
Now we're being asked to sacrifice our ability to define our own reality in the spirit of integration because when it comes to integration, it's not about what concerns you, it's about what concerns everybody. So we have to sacrifice some of the independence we never really had, in order to be accepted into a society we're not really sure wants us there in the first place.
Christianity condoned slavery, aspects of it, such as the curse of Ham Genesis 9:25) alleged that Ham after looking at his father Noah drunken and naked in an unclean manner, was cursed to have all of his decedents be the slaves of all nations and casted us as the decedents of Ham designated to be, "the lowest of slaves to his brothers", using that as a means of justifying our enslavement. For generations they've instilled in our children the idea of whites being associated with the divine by embedding images of a white Jesus in their minds. One would assume that if the son of God is white, then God must be white with these seeds in our brains we were taught to fear God, but blacks proudly boast about being Christian. These blacks have disassociated Christianity with what it was used for and redefined it by what they deem its intent to have been.
With the word Black and the religion Christianity transformed, why such resistance to the word nigger? I assume it to be the idea of what is deemed to be a low class society having the intellectual capacity to do such a thing. I assume this because the rampant use of the word is often attributed to the lack of knowledge of its history which I find to be untrue. I and many of my friends use the term and are very aware of its history. We use the term because to us, it is not defined by what they've defined it to be, it is defined as what we defined it to be. We have chosen to define our reality as those before us had chosen to define theirs, and we are unwilling to accept the idea of us being unintelligible enough to do so.
It is considered ignorant to consider yourself a nigger because a nigger was defined as being ignorant and inferior. But Nigger wasn't defined as being ignorant and inferior, black people were defined as being ignorant and inferior and nigger came to represent that because nigger was another word for black. In my opinion, it's ignorance that leads individuals to perceive the word nigger as a representation of ignorance.
Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to say it, and I'm not saying it's right. What I'm saying is it's neither and its use shouldn't really be an issue. People often try to make claims of the word being a term of endearment. I find that to be untrue as it's not always used in endearing terms. Among me and my friends it's used more so as a pronoun. Words, like people, change. The only thing consistent in life is change, "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything" – George Bernard Shaw
Negro, Nigra, Nigger, Nigga
Check this post for even more on this "Can I Call You Nigga Now"
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