At a party I went to a couple of weeks ago, the song “Caroline” by the rapper Aminé began to play. The party was majority white and as the song played the part, “Freaky with the sticky-icky, baby give me kitty kitty/ Killa, westside nigga,” a group of white and Latina girls from a sorority said “nigga” with excitement and exuberance. I was standing right next to them and jumped back, even at this crowded party, at what I just heard. Turning around another white girl locked eyes with me in disbelief by how easily the word fell off their tongues. I know black students on this campus have been very critical about white people using it, but I had not heard a white person openly saying it in my presence at the school.
The first time I heard a white person say “nigga” was during football camp of my first year of high school. I was in a huddle with my other teammates waiting for the play to come in from our coach. One of the players, who eventually came to be known for using “nigga” effortlessly, decided to joke with everyone in the huddle and said, “Looks like we’re making a nigga Oreo sandwich.” I was perplexed, confused, discombobulated, shocked and unable to utter out a word. Then I realized I was the only black person in a sea of white faces that wasn’t laughing while the others are giggling at his weak and ignorant joke. I didn’t know what to do and having never been in a situation where a white person said “nigga” in my presence, I lacked the tools to deconstruct and explain to him the ignorance of his joke, so I let it go.
Nigga, negro, nigger is the elephant in the room that everyone wants to have but the owners get frustrated over repeatedly saying it’s not for them to possess. Black folks consider themselves the owners of it, we have reclaimed this word to take away the poison that spews out the mouth of those who have created and used it in a derogatory manner toward blacks. They are what you call “revisionists” who claim by seizing the word “nigger,” blacks can deprive it of its damaging connotation. While others, “reservationists,” believe no matter the good intentions of transforming the meaning, the lethal connotations will never be shed.
I’ve found it fascinating in my encounters with anyone white, Latinx, Asian, etc. openly using the “N—” word without any remorse of the derogatory consequences it afflicts. The rebuttal of many is always, “If black people can use it, then why can’t I?” or the equivalent “If I can’t say it then I think no one should say it?” These counter arguments are heard but immediately disregarded. No matter the context, if black folks hear that word from someone outside our race, it will always sound offensive and purely dehumanizing out of their mouths.
In hip-hop, it is repeatedly used for self-expression of the black struggle not as a fancy word for others to use as a joke. The “N—” word is not just a word but a poignant weapon that, when used, can create conflict in a split second.
Kamal Morgan, a Staff Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at KMorgan20@wooster.edu.