March 21, 2021

Why do white people want to use the N-word?

 Question flipped:


92 comments:

eddie willers said...

All or nothing.

rhhardin said...

The n-word is a resource, having opposite meanings in different contexts. White people want to say it to talk about it, among others how it became a resource, and on a different topic how it's used politically in power plays that can only work with women. Guys don't care how you say you feel, so are immune to your outrage.

To say it's always bad as this guy does is ridiculous. Half the literature in the English language would disappear if you're not allowed to have words with many meanings at once.

Bad sense - stupid, useless and untrustworthy person.

Good sense - person surviving against the man on his wits alone. The rogue sentiment.

iowan2 said...

Freedom does not equal desire.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

I want the rules the same for everyone, because I'm not a racist pig.

Lawrence Person said...

Actually, history is pretty much filled with people repurposing derogatory terms aimed at them.

See also: The Slants, Beaners, Canuck, Cracker.

n.n said...

nerd. nerd. nerd. geek. nerd. negro. negra... nerd.

Lawrence Person said...

See also: South Park's "Crips For Life."

rhhardin said...

"You can't take Amanda on long walks, Mr. Jones. She's delicate."

The lady is saying that refined girls are sickly, by way of the multiple meaning performance of "delicate." Sickly is needed by context, but refined inserts itself.

You could use the n-word to say under cover that blacks are the clever ones when it comes to social skills.

tim maguire said...

The opportunistic outrage at whitey saying the n-word is of recent vintage. Back when racism was an actual problem and people meant the word as a smear, civilized whites didn't say it. Now that it's rarely said by white people and virtually never to be hurtful, any agglomeration of letters making a similar sounds can end your career and social acceptability. It's a disingenuous piling on for the sheer joy of destroying vulnerable people.

rhhardin said...

There's probably a related reason why women author so few literary works of value. Refusal to play with words lest feelings be hurt. They shy away from mulling them over for the just word in the situation.

Rob said...

Tim Maguire is correct. The n-word became magical when Johnny Cochran cleverly and opportunistically made it so in order to get O.J. Simpson acquitted. Good for Cochran. Before then, it could be used, for example, by Dick Gregory as the title of his book. Attempts to ban Huckleberry Finn for using the word would be ridiculed by intellectuals. Cochran changed all that--or rather, the willingness of elite media and opinion leaders to buy into his jury tactics changed all that.

Tommy Duncan said...

Being triggered by language is a form of virtue signaling for wanna be victims. The eternally offended believe they are supremely virtuous.

Amadeus 48 said...

As a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur, I proudly claim the sobriquet of Yid.

rhhardin said...

Cunt must be similar. It's an outrage term with a hundred other excellent uses.

Curiously a google image search for cunt turns up mostly t-shirt merchandise, all the way down to the cunt coin bank.

Did you know there's a cunt splice in rope tying? Etymology obscure, it claims. It's a lot clearer than the pussy hat's.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I don't have any interest in using the word, but I also don't want to see some teenager getting canceled because they happened to sing along with or use phrasing from a popular song, however unfortunate it is that such a song is popular.

Joe Smith said...

Nobody wants to use it.

I just hate the hypocrisy.

It's a way to say 'if you can say it then why can't everyone'?

Black people are treated like children, but they either don't realize it or they like it.

I also object to censorship in almost every form.

Joe Smith said...

The word's value is being used as a hammer against everyone else.

It elevates those who can use the word to special victim status.

rhhardin said...

It's the short-bus theory of the n-word.

h said...

We need to have an open and honest conversation about race in the US. Here's what white people can say: [NOT ONE SINGLE THING.]

Bunkypotatohead said...

Sometimes it's an accurate description of the person you're referring to.

Amadeus 48 said...

It is always a mistake to head down this alley, Tik-Tok, or no Tik-Tok.

rhhardin said...

There's a second positive meaning, a fond version of the bad meaning, of the n-word. Lionel, you're such a [n-word]. After Lionel does something stupidly self-destructive.

Cato said...

The F word is everywhere in my neighborhood. Graffiti all over with the F word. Nobody cleans any of it up. So it occurred to me that if we spray painted the N word everywhere there was the F word it would all be immediately be cleaned up. And guess what?

Yancey Ward said...

"And guess what?"

They painted bigger fucks to cover it up?

DeepRunner said...

Don't think white folks want to use the N-word. Not are most white folks racist.

Rabel said...

"It is always a mistake to head down this alley, Tik-Tok, or no Tik-Tok."

Truth.

tcrosse said...

It's not that White people want to use That Word but that they resent the penalties for having uttered it at any time in the past, especially if some are exempt.

Ann Althouse said...

"It is always a mistake to head down this alley, Tik-Tok, or no Tik-Tok."

What alley?

Did you *watch* the video? I'm going to have to guess no.

Please watch the video before commenting, otherwise the conversation is incoherent. The only reason for this post is *the video* — I'm not setting up some more general conversation. Don't just trot out the old hobbyhorses.

Ann Althouse said...

That video is in the early stages of going viral. I'm interested in following that.

robother said...

Cato: "Graffiti all over with the F word." The Catholic Church at the end of my alley was graffitied with all kinds of satanic shit about 6 months ago, including Fuck Jesus. But they also scrawled the N-Word. And by the "N-Word" I mean literally "N-Word". Even Satanists looking to shock are woke these days.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Joy Reid thinks that conservatives would give up all their tax breaks to use the n-word. What she really meant is Democrats would love to use it even if they had to stop stealing elections. She is also the same Joy Reid who thought her Twitter feed had been hacked by time traveling trolls when where derogatory tweets about gay people (the f-word) were brought to light. It's Democrats who like to slime people with either slurs or out right lies, like the recent Asian-hate fest they're promoting.

Francisco D said...

Interesting video. I liked it.

The only people interested in the n-word are those who want to cancel anyone who ever uttered the word or came close to uttering the word. Most of that is historical and not present day. Obviously it is a tool for the coming revolution.

If this video goes viral, it is a good thing. People need to think more about the n-word hustle.

Tinderbox said...

I live in the South, and have not heard the word used by anyone in the last 25+ years other than by blacks and by a few teenage white boys trying to sound edgy when addressing their friends with it.

Original Mike said...

"Why do white people want to use the N-word?"

Why do you want to think I want to use the n-word?

rhhardin said...

White people wanting to use the n-word are the systemic racism we're hearing about. It's a sort of invisible gas that is responsible for the ongoing holding-back of black people.

Someday there will be detectors of this gas in the workplace, like smoke detectors and CO detectors. They'll last ten years and then beep once a half hour and you'll never be able to locate it.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Joy Reid thinks that conservatives would give up all their tax breaks to use the n-word.

I'm sure Joy Reid qualifies for way more tax breaks than most conservatives do. And while I have no desire to use that word, I would be happy to give some up if it meant being rid of Joy Reid.

Amadeus 48 said...

Yes, I did watch the video. I was reacting to some of the comments above my comment.

The video was both sharp and amusing.

Amadeus 48 said...

I see that the specific comment that I was concerned about has been removed by someone.

jaydub said...

I can't remember hearing a white person use the N word in the last 20 years. In fact, I don't know any white people who would tolerate anyone else using the N word. Blacks need to free themselves of their own prejudices and assumptions about white people. It's really getting tiresome.

wildswan said...

"Amadeus 48 said...
It is always a mistake to head down this alley, Tik-Tok, or no Tik-Tok."

I felt this way, too. But if I had to try to say something I'd say: this isn't the only instance of a group using a word which the group resents when used by others. But it is the only instance of a group accepting and promoting songs which it hopes to see cross into the mainstream while at the same time the words of the songs cannot be sung or referred to by the mainstream. It's strange place and time we're in and we won't come to rest here. What would happen if the mainstream removed the danger to themselves of being cancelled for accidental quotations by actually refusing to listen to all music using that word? Since we can't understand what is being said?

Ken B said...

Lawrence Person said...
Actually, history is pretty much filled with people repurposing derogatory terms aimed at them.

See also: The Slants, Beaners, Canuck, Cracker.
============

This is correct and pertinent. Unfortunately you said “Canuck”, which is not permitted for Americans. Please report to the nearest vaporizer for annihilation.

Ken B said...

The alley I think is discussion of using the word, and Amadeus 48 was I think saying that nothing useful can come of such a discussion in the current climate, even if wrapped in cute Tik Tok editing. That seems a coherent response to the video. I assume Amadeus pissed AA off on some other post.

Fernandinande said...

I think we're all nwords on this bus.

n.n said...

Blacks need to free themselves of their own prejudices and assumptions about white people. It's really getting tiresome.

Some, select Blacks... People of Black. There is, and was, a diverse conservative: Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit Happiness population.

Amadeus 48 said...

If I have angered Althouse otherwise, I am unaware of it.

Ken B has pretty well described my thoughts, plus there was a comment above, which has disappeared, that started off in a provocative tone and cited some inaccurate allegations about group IQs, which I suppose is the reason it was removed.

I thought, this is going nowhere good. Fortunately, the comment is gone.

The Tik-tok, as I said, is sharp and amusing.

narciso said...

Why do they want to use, its a word indicative of a lazy mind

narciso said...

No i dont accept chris rocks rationalization for using it.

JaimeRoberto said...

I used it today when quoting the tweet from that woman on the SF school board. Other than that I have no real interest.

Narr said...

Nubian, please.

When I was still slogging on campus, every spring from I dunno the mid-90s to about 2010 the LGBTQetc students had a "Why Do You Hate Me?" Week. That was literally what they called it, and got student govt money to do it--displays, walls of hatespeech, tunnels of oppression, all kinds of special pleading, not to mention puling.

"Well, look at your sorry asses," would have been the best answer, but I didn't hate them. Closer to Updike's tolerance bordering on disdain--these spiritual children of the goofiest students of my own day (70s), with the same illusions but less excuse.

Narr
Neoneanderthal



Michael said...

.
This whole angst over use of a word is some serious schoolyard bullsh!t. A word is just a set of symbols arranged to convey a meaning. Thus, n****r and n-word have equal meanings. To say one is OK and the other is not is, once again, some juvenile thinking.

America, will you please grow the fock up.

narciso said...

See thats a clever substitution

Amadeus 48 said...

A lot of this razzamatazz about that word is about putting guilt-ridden white people on the outside.

You think you are cool? You are NOT cool. You want some of my cool? You gotta beg. Nope. You can't have it. Nope. Don't say that word. You are not entitled. I can say that word anytime I want, but you can never say it.

So, I think that the question in the Tik-Tok can only be answered by a certain sort of tribalism: we are in, and you are out.

Sean Gleeson said...

Okay but when the guy in the vid asked "Why does the R-word spring to mind?" I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. I Googled it, and the only "R-word" slur I found was "retarded." Is that the word that sprung to this fellow's mind? And he is asking me why that happened? Sorry, guy, I don't know either.

Unknown said...

Sean - me too! Can someone explain what he meant by the R word if it's not the word "retarded"? Overall, I found his video spot on to my own thinking.

Quaestor said...

I want the rules the same for everyone because I'm not a racist pig.

Sorry, Greg, the left has long since cut off that line of retreat. Wanting the same rules for everyone is RACIST by definition. Ergo, the only non-racist way to formulate that otherwise laudable sentiment is as follows: I want the rules the same for everyone because I am a racist pig.

Aspire to racism.

Quaestor said...

I Googled it, and the only "R-word" slur I found was "retarded." Is that the word that sprung to this fellow's mind? And he is asking me why that happened? Sorry, guy, I don't know either.

Funny how kinder, gentler euphemisms like retarded are now judged to be words that can't be spoken, especially since the same kind of scolds who forced us to say "he's regarded" when we all really meant "he's an idiot", now want us to say "he has special needs" as if idiots can gain a normal IQ if only the secret sauce is liberally applied.

Quaestor said...

I Googled it, and the only "R-word" slur I found was "regarded."

You're forgetting Ruritanian. Why, if it weren't for that sly Rupert of Hentzau I'd be King of Ruritania...

Ann Althouse said...

Did *anyone* respond to the video?

doctrev said...

It's not that white people want to use the negro-word. It's that some of them revile speech police in general, and hate the current speech commissars specifically. The word was low-class and backwoods in the 60s. Now it has become the hallmark of a subculture, allegedly because the subculture is "reclaiming" the word. The reality is twofold:

1) The word accurately describes that subculture, and will for the foreseeable future.
2) It's too useful to the elites to let go.

Contrast the other N-word, Nazi- the political and ethnic context which gave that ideology any coherence has completely vanished from civilization. But the elites who define themselves as the primary victims of Nazis find it far too useful for their passion plays. Calling someone a Nazi is likely to purge them from all employment and society in general. Which is why career criminals with a typically garbled American perspective get swastika tattoos. They are outsiders to white society, much like the negro-words are outsiders even to civilized black society.

It is still safe to call someone a Nazi, for obvious reasons. But calling someone a negro-word, to their face, is so dangerous to the caller that it will become a warning signal. Someone ready to do that has no fear of losing their job. No fear of legal consequences. For a black man to hear it from a white man means violence is almost certainly imminent. Especially because the white men most likely to do so would call themselves Nazis.

In an environment of white genocide, such signals will have their uses.

doctrev said...

As for the video: that poor fool is going to find himself being cancelled. I'll be surprised if it is still on TikTok tomorrow, and fully expect Kendon Fahr to be permabanned. The reasonableness of his position is beside the point. If he's unaware of the history, or the pressure exerted by Big Tech against anyone skeptical about idolatry of the negro, then he has precious little worth talking about.

Original Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ken B said...


Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Did *anyone* respond to the video?

===

Lawrence Person did, and I did by explicitly agreeing with the point he made. The point was about whether slurs are ever appropriated and turned around. The Tik-Tokker seemed to think not, but LP gave several examples.

Do we count?

Ken B said...

Original Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author
======

Good idea Mike. Wiser to avoid even making such comments.

Ken B said...

More examples of slurs appropriated:
Mick.
Hoosier.
Yankee.
Pinko.
Fag.
Queer.

So the guy is just wrong on this point.

Original Mike said...

There was nothing in my comment that was offensive. I missed Althouse's point.

Meade said...

“Actually, history is pretty much filled with people repurposing derogatory terms aimed at them.

See also: The Slants, Beaners, Canuck, Cracker.”

Hoosier, hayseed, hillbilly, hick. Also—redneck. Deplorable. Irredeemable.

Racist, however, will never be repurposed except by racists.

n.n said...

The n-erve you say.

People of White. Also, People of Black, People of Brown, People of Yellow, People of Orange, too. People of Fetus.

n.n said...

re: People of Fetus

People of Baby, when she's wanted, unprofitable, and meets the carbon quota.

n.n said...

People of Parent (POP), including MOM. People of Posterity (POP), including People of Child (POC), sometimes qualified as People of unPlanned Child (POPC) or SURVIVOR.

Meade said...

Nerd was an n-word when I was a child. Too hurtful. Boy, did nerds repurpose that one in a big way!

Sissy was also too hurtful to use. We respectfully used the term “tomgirl” for boys who didn’t want to come out and play because they preferred to stay in and watch tv or listen to records—especially if they were early Beatles records or Chad and Jeremy. And then we’d go ask our neighborhood tomboy, Allison if she wanted to round out the side that was short a “man” in kickball. She could always be counted on to say yes and, if it was a hot July day, would take off her shirt like the rest of us. No one ever seemed to care or consider it worth remarking on.

The “n-word” n-word was never used because we knew it would hurt the feelings of our one and only black friend who lived 2 doors down. Only, back then “black” and even “colored” were considered inappropriate. Only “negro” was considered respectful. Of course, today “negro” is widely considered an n-word and mustn’t be used but only referred to unlike the “n-word” n-word which is neither used nor referred to except by using “n-word” to refer to the word that was only used by the family of bullies on the next block. Turned out they were being raised by parents who were unabashed racists. We just hadn’t learned the word “racist” yet so we simply called them bullies or, for emphasis, the “bad bully B brothers” because their last name began with a “b.”

Quaestor said...

Did *anyone* respond to the video?

OK, here's mine: Well, duh...

That used to be a thing, didn't it? When someone says something so glaringly obvious it really didn't need saying. Duh... Never thought I'd be drawing from the Valley Girl well.

Perhaps there's something so fundamentally underachieving about TikTok and persons who might actually have the inclination to create content for TikTok, let alone content with the dramatic zoom-in used repeatedly*, that subtleties like Well, Duh... might be inappropriate, like tickling with a feather when a whomp upside of the head with a two-by-four is called for.

*Note to TikTokkers, (TikTokites? TikTokoids?) just because you have that CreativeCloud subscription doesn't mean your content will be necessarily improved by applying AfterEffects. Though it's an improvement over N-Word Guy's violet beard.

virgil xenophon said...

Amadeus 48@5:PM/

FWIW, when I was stationed in the U.K. compliments of the good ole USAF circa Dec. '68-Sep 71 your fave FC was known as the Tottenham Court Hotspurs.

Anonymous said...

In context, hearing the video the first time (and before reading the comments), I took the “R word” to mean racist, in its new woke meaning (only white people can be racist).

rhhardin said...

I watched the video and responded by saying that the n-word isn't a problem in the first place.

BUMBLE BEE said...

This dichotomy has turned a lot of people into naggers.

Anonymous said...

The “Austrian” economists was also a derogatory term as used by German Historical School economists.

Led by Carl Menger, the Austrians were at the forefront of what is known as the “marginal revolution.”
Principles of Economics (1871)

Intellectual allies of the German Historical School included University of Wisconsin economists Richard T. Ely and John Commons. Ely received his PhD in Germany and Commons was a doctoral student of his at John Hopkins. Intellectual allies of the Austrians in the United States, who were their contemporaries and also received PhDs in Germany, included John Bates Clark and Frank Fetter.

Lurker21 said...

He's wrong. In talking among themselves many members of different groups repurpose the slur words that have been directed against them as terms of belonging and endearment. It means that you belong; we've gone through the same thing. Wops, Micks, Polacks, even the dreaded K-word. And I see now that there are many others. But they don't want outsiders using the same words. Rap makes public what people have done in private for years. While I think Strange Ginger-Bearded man is wrong about the general point, he's not the only person who doesn't like rap being so upfront and unapologetic about using the N-word.

Lurker21 said...

Joy Reid thinks that conservatives would give up all their tax breaks to use the n-word.

Given the troubles Joy Reid has had paying her own taxes, she might give up using the n-word if she could get a deal like that.

Rusty said...

Freedom of speech, mate,
Either everything is on the table or it ain't freedom of speech, right?

MadisonMan said...

I think the N-word would be useful if I were in an argument with someone and I wanted to use it throw them off-balance. Similarly, the c-word for women. (Look how verklempt the whisper of that made the Madison City Council!)
I will have enough sense to make sure that nothing is being recorded, of course.

Ken B said...

Original Mike
Your comments needn’t be offensive to be better unsaid.

Meade said...

"This dichotomy has turned a lot of people into naggers."

Nagger Guys.

MayBee said...

There was a time where it was bad, but people were indeed trying to "take it back". So it might be used as a joke (like, I would not really ever call you this, this is an outrageous thing to say so I'm saying it), and then it became the very worst thing to say.
Which is interesting, because it seems to be on par with a lot of other slurs that can be used for black people. N*gro, C*olored...those really seem as bad in context as THE N word. And saying "n-word" shouldn't be acceptable, because we all know what your saying. I don't understand how even alluding to a word so against our sensibilities that people can be fired for using it, can be rendered safe by simply taking out a vowel or referring to it as a word.

I think the "take it back" people had it more right. Mostly because it seems kind of ridiculous that one word supposedly is more powerful than all the others. Are we imagining that every person who lynched black people were saying this N word, and not the other N word? Or the C word?

Achilles said...

This is all distraction.

All of it.

stlcdr said...

I once said to a black person "don't get your knickers in a twist."

Black people, and now an angst ridden society, are hypersensitized to the 'n-word' such that words are weaponized, ironically, against blacks.

loudogblog said...

I don't think it's true that other ethnicities don't occasionally use racial slurs to describe their friends in a friendly or humorous way. As a Latino, I occasionally hear other Latinos call their friends words that would be considered ethnic slurs if a white person said it to them. Also, I hear women call each other sexist slurs from time to time in a friendly, joking way. I think that it's human nature to use ugly words in a joking way, from time to time, to make things seem a little less serious. (And a lot of times, it doesn't work; so it's very risky to do.)

mikee said...

I have poor white southern relatives who still casually and frequently use the N word. Their usage is based as much or more on the class and behavior of the Blacks so described as on their skin tone. They don't call people like Barack Obama or Clarence Thomas by the N word. They reserve it for describing Blacks of low socioeconomic standing and especially for criminals.

They also have Black neighbors, coworkers and friends who of course are called Blacks, not the N word. They see no internal contradictions in their language use. It is almost as if they are reserving the word to insult people they find deserving of disrespect. Rednecks, huh?!

RigelDog said...

Antifa types during their recent year of rioting screamed the N-word at white people they didn't like. ?????????????????

Gojuplyr831@gmail.com said...

Cunt is an approved - by the left- descriptor if preceded by the term feckless.

I remember the cool kids and liberals use of the n-word to demonstrate to other white kids that they were part of the cool group and we were not. It was just one upmanship. Like most liberals today. They don't really care about the things they espouse, they just want you to acknowledge their moral superiority.

Anonymous said...

Letter from Shelby Steele and others ...

Black Intellectuals Demand Smith College Apologize to Smeared Workers, End ‘Anti-Bias’ Training

More than 40 African American intellectuals are asking Smith College to end the “forced, accusatory ‘anti-bias’ training” that was mandated for campus service workers after a student falsely accused some workers of racially-profiling her.

The letter, obtained by National Review, was sent on Monday to Smith College president Kathleen McCartney by Bob Woodson, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and founder of “1776 Unites,” and 44 fellow black intellectuals. The signatories ask McCartney to “rethink how you have handled” the fallout over an alleged incident of racial profiling in the summer of 2018, and urge her to “publicly apologize” and “compensate” the school’s service workers that were caught up in the firestorm. ...

“Many of us participated in the Civil Rights Movement, ... “We didn’t march so that Americans of any race could be presumed guilty and punished for false accusations while the elite institution that employed them cowered in fear of a social media mob. ...

wild chicken said...

OK boomers.

Sam L. said...

Nothing opened up for me, so I have NO idea what you may be trying to tell me.