Photek wrote:Christ almighty, it actually f**king blows my mind that people can't grasp the difference between black people saying the N-word and white people using it.
On the off chance that might have been at least partially directed at me, I do see the difference. However...
Moggy wrote:...Other races shouldn’t use the word because it is a word that was invented to degrade black people. The same with the P word for Asian people, the Y word for Jewish people. A racial group can use a racist word about themselves, other racial groups should not. The same as gay people can use a homophobic word about themselves, how a woman can use a sexist word about themselves etc...
Isn't that like saying a black police officer can't racially profile black youth, or a gay boss can't sexually discriminate against other gays? If one is offended by a racial term used pejoratively against them by someone from their own ethnicity I don't think that makes it any less offensive.
Moggy wrote:...What shouldn’t happen after literally hundreds of years of enslavement, abuse and bigotry is for the exact same group that coined the horrible word to say “well we don’t like the word anymore, if we can’t use it then nobody should”.
That's not the same thing as black people themselves saying "nobody should use this word - especially not the black community". Instead, we have a situation where, for some, the n-word has become a sort of social
fetish - something to be said at every opportunity to do so safely - and it has no place in a multicultural society. White rap fans can't use the n-word, but can you really not see why they would want to? Haven't they culturally misappropriated everything else?
jawafour wrote:I think that sectors of people whom the bad words are targeted at perhaps use the bad words themselves in order to "reclaim" them? In effect, to lessen the impact and take away some of the horrible intent?...
Such a reclamation would require, as you say, the impact of offence to be lessened - which is patently not the case with the n-word. I can see how the term 'gay' has become less offensive, to the point where it is celebrated by homosexuals, heterosexuals (and everything in between) alike. Not so with the n-word. Rather, I would suggest that black people use the n-word as a direct result of internalized oppression, where they think negatively about themselves and others of their own ethnicity.
I'm not suggesting that all entertainment containing the n-word should be banned... but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I don't find its use edgy and cool, which is how it is often portrayed - I just think it's embarrassing.