My hot take: the “n word” technically doesn’t even have an offensive meaning and black people should stop giving af

[caanoshaah]

SUMMARRYYY: black people shouldn’t gaf about the word “n*gger” because technically the meaning of the word is literally just “black”, the only reason it’s offensive is because it keeps being used in an “offensive way” BECAUSE black people get offended highkey black people fumbled trying to “reclaim” the word but then limiting it to only black people cuz now it can still be used against black/african people.

Now ALTERNATIVELY, imagine if the n word either 1. Went out of use or 2. was reclaimed in a manner where it was socially “allowed” for everyone to say, the offensive nature would have been lost which honestly would have stumped a lot of cunsuuris, imagine them having to scramble for a proper slur instead of just jumping to “n*gger” everytime because they KNOW that’s what riles maadows up???

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Now my historical evidence:

I know historically the word was used in an extremely derogatory way but let’s deep this okay…… what does “n*gger” actually MEAN????? than just being a mean word for black people????

If we look into the linguistic history the root word for “n*gger” pretty much is “negro” which just boils down to “black”. Btw anyone familiar with Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian etc would know ironically enough while “negro” is considered offensive in the west it is a regular everyday word over there and in Latin America

Don’t yall think it’s interesting the word “n*gger” doesn’t really have an inherently offensive meaning, other than just being black and it being USED as an insult? this must also be the reason why it was easy for black people to reclaim the word “nigga” because in a literal sense all it means is “black”

My point is the literal MEANING of the word isn’t actually truly offensive when you deep it all that’s offensive is the use itself

And in my opinion the fact that the word is offensive at all is technically the greatest psyop in history because think about this, on a subconscious level this slur straight up makes the state of being black/african in itself an insult… not only this but the fact is happened to be the most “OFFENSIVE” ONE?? COME TF ONN?

Am I tweaking or not who wants to expand on my philosophical thoughts come on yall think deep and out of the box, I also wanna know why the slur “n*gger” survived the longest out of all other slurs against black people from back in the day?!

 

[caanoshaah]

That being said I might actually be a little bit autistic because I genuinely cannot understand what makes the word n*gger offensive other than the context of its usage... I would be way more offended to be called monkey/slave/shitskin etc bc those words actually carry negative meanings (dehumanizations, calling me second class, etc) but n*gger? Likeeee okay?????? What exactly is there to really be offended about, other than we are SOCIALIZED to view that word as offensive……??????

Pavlov conditioning is so real like we could make the word socks offensive if we tried let’s do an experiment and just calling mfs socks on repeat and see what happens 10-15 years ….

 

[balanbalis]

It’s true how slurs survive based on reaction. But completely normalising the ‘n-word’ wouldn’t make sense, instead it should fall out of use and become an archaic word.

I feel like if there weren’t any efforts to ‘reclaim’ it, it likely would have died out. Especially if no reaction was given to it.

I know ignoring someone who puts malice/hatred behind a word is against a lot of people’s morals. But in the long term, they’ll be the insane one using words that don’t have half as much power they believe it has.

At the end of the day, this is an African American’s issue that I don’t want to get involved with too much. I have my opinions but they have theirs too

 

[caanoshaah]

It’s true how slurs survive based on reaction. But completely normalising the ‘n-word’ wouldn’t make sense, instead it should fall out of use and become an archaic word.

I feel like if there weren’t any efforts to ‘reclaim’ it, it likely would have died out. Especially if no reaction was given to it.

I know ignoring someone who puts malice/hatred behind a word is against a lot of people’s morals. But in the long term, they’ll be the insane one using words that don’t have half as much power they believe it has.

At the end of the day, this is an African American’s issue that I don’t want to get involved with too much. I have my opinions but they have theirs too

You are very wise I totally agree with you but I stick my nose in other cultures business regardless, Indians, indhayars doesn’t matter… nobody is safe from me I like to observe this world and the dynamics between humans like a Nat Geo documentary

 

[balanbalis]

I also wanted to add how despite the reclamation, the n-word is still used derogatorily by black people against each other. While this is no where near as bad as a non-black person using it, it shows that it isn’t truly reclaimed as it still has negative connotations.

Plus the rap-culture of ‘cool-ness’ around the n-word is likely an even larger reason for why non-black people use it. All the TJs in my area said the n-word because they thought it made them cool.

 

[Angelina]

The ‘N’ word is actually what a lot of AAs heard before white supremacists lynched them and laughed whilst they swung from a tree pre-1970s. What I wrote is incredibly graphic but it’s the only way to get youngsters with no understanding of historical realities to actually think.

These rappers and other groups trying to normalize the word are disrespectful. Even worse when it’s some AAs trying to normalize it and can’t even think for a second of the dehumanizing impact that word had on their peoples. 0 self respect.