A level headed and intelligent response.

The following is a comment from the "What does the N-Word mean?" post.

My thanks to Dwayne. I don't know who Dwayne is, or if Dwayne is black or white. It does not should not really matter.

Dwayne said...
Today, the implied racism of the term and the shock effect of the word are so strong that the use of nigger can be used to deliberately cause offense and in most situations is taboo. Many American magazines and newspapers will not even print the word. It has been completely excised from the Microsoft Encarta dictionary. The New York City Council passed a resolution in 2007 that bans the use of the word and asks that songs including the word in their lyrics be excluded from consideration for a Grammy Award.

But again the word is often, maybe too often, used in a casual sense between friends or work colleagues of both white and mixed race e.g. "Wassup, my nigger" without meaning to, or indeed causing offence. And although Black, Aboriginal, or Polynesian people use the term to greet each other, it is not considered acceptable to use the term to a stranger or casual acquaintance. Modern variants such as nigga are used as a synonym for "person" in a controversial effort to reclaim the word for general use.

The word nigga as variant of nigger has been used self-referentially by many in the African American community, like a pronoun to refer to a black man. With the rise in popularity of rap and hip-hop, the term has become more widely used among some black youth and among some non-blacks as well. This new revisionist usage, particularly among non-blacks, has been the source of considerable controversy.

What non-blacks fail to understand is that historically the self-reference of the word began when slaves often exploited the weakness of racist arrogance by using the word “nigger” to their advantage, in the self- criticizing, deceptive maneuver of Tomming. Tomming or being called an “uncle-tom” is when a Black person is humiliatingly subservient or courteous and reverent to white people in an effort to advance themselves. Implicit was an unspoken reminder that a presumably inferior person could not reasonably be held responsible for work performed incorrectly or any similar offense. It was a means of deflecting responsibility in the hope of escaping the wrath of an overseer or master. Its use as a self-referential term was also a way to avoid suspicion and put whites at ease. A slave who referred to himself or another black as a "nigger" presumably accepted their subordinate role and posed no threat to the white “master” or authority.

Whether or not this “slave” mentality is still prevalent in today’s society, I cannot say, but it is time that everyone understand the history of this word and accept that it has no place in society today. Non-black people should not use it because of its implied racism, and blacks, today should find some other word or phrase to be casual amongst themselves with, because even in a self-referentially manner, that word still has an non-endearing history that we should leave as what it is, history.