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Obituary: N-word’s life colored by racist connotations

Philadelphia students re-enact the ceremony (Photo/ Philadelphia Inquirer)

N-word, the racial slur used for decades by bigots to express their hatred for Negroes, was buried yesterday in a lavish-but-delusional ceremony in Detroit.

“We will bury this offensive usage among all people, including African Americans,” said Victoria Lanier, a civil rights activist quoted by Reuters (Link) . “We promise that we will be more creative in our rap lyrics, more respectful to our ancestors.”

The procession prompted mixed reactions around the country. Black opinion was split. Most whites viewed it as a publicity stunt, while some watched news reports of the event on television and barked the N-word at the screen.

“You’re my N-word”

The origins of N-word go back to Latin, where a form of the word was used to describe something “black” (Link). It evolved through the years and was used by polite society until the 1800s, after Americans began enslaving Africans, when it became a vile term used to demean and disparage slaves, aka “n-words.”

By the mid-1900s, the use of the N-word was gaining disfavor as the momentum built for the American civil rights movement. By the 1960s, N-word fell out of favor and was shunned by mainstream, non-mouth-breathing America.

It was revived — albeit in a backhanded fashion — in comedy sketches made famous by cutting edge performers such as Richard Pryor in the 1970s and on the television show “All In The Family” (Link). Such usage confused most white people, causing many to laugh nervously at stuff that really wasn’t funny. This was the birth of the knee-jerk liberal movement.

N-word earned its loftiest place in American culture, however, when African-Americans began extensive use of the word in music and movies, which were consumed primarily by predominantly white audiences. It even became a term of endearment among friends — white and black — in the early 21st Century.

N-word with attitude

This development confused many whites. Closeted bigots felt it represented a double standard and whined even more about non-existent plots against them. Friendlier whites felt empowered to see if they, too, could use the world. (They found out differently after the first such usage, which typically resulted in embarrassing silence and disbelief among others.)

Black leaders and civil rights groups for years had continued to battle against acceptance of the word and lobbied for its termination. Artists who used the word argued for it, saying it was an accepted part of the world from which they sprang.

(Most of them, it must be noted, are millionaires who used the word to generate and augment their wealth.)

The N-word plummeted from grace quickly during a succession of embarrassing public incidents involving white celebrities over the last two years.

N-word, please

First, socialite Paris Hilton was heard uttering the word in a video hosted on celebrity gossip Web sites. Later, unemployed comedian Michael Richards sparked a national outrage when he used the term in anger toward black audience members.

The N-word, which really isn’t dead, is survived by a host of other ethnic slurs still used by paranoid American racists and anti-Semites. The N-word asks that, in lieu of flowers, bigots continue to use it and other moronic terms in hateful and destructive ways.


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