Generation 'N': outside races and the N-word

Nigger: usu. taken to be offensive — a black person.

The dictionary definition of the word has yet to catch up. When nigger dusted
off its -er and became the new-and-improved nigga, the meaning of the word was no longer black and white. Now some blacks have spun the slur into a borderline compliment, a change so drastic that it would parallel faggot becoming friend, honky becoming homeboy or spick becoming pal. Forty years after the Civil Rights Movement, the most incendiary slur in American history is now interchangeable with guy, buddy or even brother.

However, an emerging double standard insists that blacks are the sole legitimate users of the word. To some blacks, no other races — especially whites — should be allowed to use nigga. Others seem to have changed that ultimatum and accepted the newest face of the N-word phenomenon: Non-blacks in Blair, especially Latinos, are casually using the word in everyday language.

Outside use of the N-word wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the cultural factors that have begun to suggest its acceptability in today's society. The transition of nigger from negative to positive is due in part to the tendency of marginalized groups to empower themselves with a slur rather than become victim to it, according to Harvard professor Randall Kennedy, author of "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word." Just as some lesbians refer to themselves as dykes or some poor whites refer to themselves as rednecks, many blacks have come to refer to themselves as niggas, Kennedy says. Taking that cue, many rap artists now use the word as positive self-identification, while black comedians such as Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock use the word for comedic purposes.

Culturally, the load has lightened on nigger. "In an earlier time in American life," Kennedy said in a phone interview, "`nigger' or its variation was so overwhelmingly used as a racist putdown that I don't think there was really space left for other uses. Although it's still used as a racist putdown, other alternative uses have a bit more space."

Beyond black

That space is probably why senior Luis Morataya has no qualms saying, "What's up, nigga?" to his friends in the hallway. Morataya doesn't see being Latino and using the N-word as mutually exclusive. Instead he uses nigga as a friendly phrase to greet his buddies, and not just his black ones.

Morataya asserts, "It's just a word."

To a certain extent, Kennedy agrees. In "Nigger," he writes that the N-word takes on the meaning of its context in society. Kennedy touches on whites in Detroit who refer to themselves as niggers and Asian Americans in San Francisco who call themselves niggas to illustrate when the word is not necessarily used in a racist fashion among some groups of people.

Senior Jeremy Romero maintains that there is no racism involved when he uses the phrase. He is no stranger to the word because of his exposure to it on so many levels. Romero, whose family is from Honduras, uses nigga comfortably among friends. His cousin and brother use the word as slang. And at school, his black and Hispanic friends use the word frequently. He even has a white friend who does. "It's just something you say," Romero explains.

Romero listens to Tupac, Biggie and Ludacris — only a few of the black rappers who regularly use nigga in their lyrics. Another such rap artist, Ja Rule, paired with Latina sensation Jennifer Lopez in 2001 to make the hit single, "I'm Real." But an uproar followed when some black listeners found that Lopez used nigga in her lyrics.

Yet a number of Blair's black students don't take offense at outside use of the word. Romero's mild "nigga" habit has never bothered one of his best friends, senior Makonnen Brown, despite the fact that Brown is black. "I don't really take it too seriously, 'cause that's my man," Brown says of Romero.

Gary Jeanty, a black senior, has reached a similar level of comfort with some of his non-black friends who use the word. "For me, when I'm around friends, it's cool," he says.

Senior Sheri Lawal, another black student, is not as comfortable hearing the phrase spoken offhandedly. "No matter how you pronounce it or spell it, it still has a derogatory meaning," she says. She does admit, however, that hearing a black person use the word is easier to handle than hearing a person of a different race do so.

Nigger's scars

But any use of the word nigger is painful to hear for English resource teacher Vickie Adamson, who is black. Regardless of pronunciation or racial context, the word is still offensive to her. "Just keeping the word alive, that's the problem," she says.

Adamson has been called nigger in the past, -er intact. She feels strongly that the word is not one that should be used lightly and equates the usage with ignorance. "I think students should be a lot more self-aware about language and what language means," she says. "The word had its place in history, and now we need to move beyond it."

But senior Henry Soza, a Latino student who has used the word, insists that when he says it as slang, "it's not coming from the word `nigger.'" Instead, Soza views it as an entirely new phrase, one unrelated to its historically racist roots.

Kennedy believes that people who use the word lightly are not necessarily ignorant of the word's former meaning. "There are probably some people who are well aware of the history but are trying to chart out a different future for this word," he says.

Black Culture Instructor Jennifer McAndrew, a teacher at the University of Maryland, points out that bitch and queer, terms traditionally used to degrade women and homosexuals, have been used in modern pop culture to compliment rather than insult. "She's a Bitch," the music single by Missy Elliot, and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the gay-centric television series, are examples of these words' positive power. Perhaps nigger is headed in the same direction, McAndrew speculates.

In any case, despite the protests of people who believe the word to be insulting, nigger isn't going anywhere.

"I think it's a very key word in American life," Kennedy says. "I think a hundred years from now it'll still be around."