The Inexplicable Power of the N-word

The word is being used as a weapon.

It isn’t clear exactly when the “N” word became unspeakable for those who aren’t black, but it has. It is strange that the word’s literal meaning just designates a color. The word doesn’t explicitly impune character, suggest immorality or insult your parentage—and yet. Any insulting or derogative meaning associated with the word has to come from associations the listener gives to that word.

The listener gets to imagine or guess what the speaker meant and can decide that imagined intent to harm the speaker—if they want to. People have been censored, suspended, wrongly accused. fined, fired and even killed for saying that word even when it was not used as a slur. The “N” word is now forbidden to non-blacks. Blacks may use it as they wish including generously in pop music, music that is publicly broadcast. It has even been considered by some blacks as an endearment depending on the context and always between blacks.

Is there any other word that so clearly exhibits a double standard of fairness for its use? Aren’t double standards proof of inequality? Why aren’t there any other words that are racially banned or forbidden?

The restrictive use of the N-word is a bizarre anomaly: All races and ethnicities have been and continue to be demeaned, shamed and hated with vicious and ugly words—many words are far more explicitly vulgar than the N-word. The N-word exists to make the other submit.

For some devoutly religious people, the word of God can never be spoken or even written. This may be enforced in religious communities, but is not a publicly accepted rule in the west. The only other banned name I am aware of is “Voldemort,” the dark lord of the Harry Potter series, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Curiously, many other racial slurs are at least as insulting, but they are not given the reverence that the “N” word has or its power to punish the non-black speaker. The N-word has acquired this power fairly recently. You should be asking why “Chink,” “Wop,” Kike,” “Peckerwood,” etc., etc. are less offensive than the N-word? They all mean essentially the same thing—that the “other” is subhuman.

It is insane that the N- word can mean “I like you” or “I hate you!” depending on the skin color of the speaker. Why don’t we strive for some equity in insults and slurs? To achieve equity, it makes a lot more sense for us to downgrade the N-word’s power rather than to upgrade the punishment for all other obnoxious racial/ethnic/sexual slurs. Insulting blacks was never intended by many authors and speakers, and yet offense is now taken whenever it suits and false accusations have been made. Mark Twain certainly never intended any offense to blacks when he wrote Huckleberry Finn in which the black, runaway slave, Jim, is made to appear noble.

Racial slurs are just one brand of angry, hurtful speech. Our casual speech is riddled with sexual slurs that society generally just considers rude. I think the seven banned words that George Carlin listed in his 1972 monologue still get beeped off the air by the networks, but cable stations tend to be pretty lax about restricting bad language. But nobody is going to let a white person use the “N” word on the air.

Slurs to insult women are generally uglier than the equivalents for men. It can be hard to be juicily crude without including women in the disgrace. For example, when a male slur seems too puny, add on a female slur and you’ll have a winner, e.g. “You are a ????ing-cunt!! or twat or pussy, etc. gives the insult a hefty kick. That female slur will also add a nice demeaning insinuation that the man is also effeminate… and for a male that is as low as there is. “You _____like a girl”

Offending words are an ugly, probably inevitable, part of language. It is hard not to wonder whether animals have their own versions of it—I’d bet they do; especially cats. The frequency of use of foul language has increased a lot in the last two decades and what has that done for our togetherness? It makes the speaker appear too dumb to use an original insult and it offends and angers everyone. Why do we want to have to deal with more pissed off people? Challenge yourself to be original in your spicy language.

It is lunacy to grant one race power sufficient to dismantle the lives of people they claim have disrespected them with a single word? And now people who have not used the N-word are getting called “racist” which is almost as problematic in the workplace as the N-word.

If lives weren’t disrupted by being accused of name-calling, this would be equivalent to elementary schoolyard chant, “Billy has cooties!”. No one likes to be called a demeaning name, but how much damage does it really do? A momentary ego bruise? When we were kids, we were told by the grownups that,“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names and faces will never hurt me.”. Isn’t it time for all of us to be resilient adults?’

Free speech is how you oppose those in power; it allows everyone to be heard and for original and innovative thoughts to be introduced to all—good and bad. How else are we going to learn more, get wiser, and make our world better? Imagine if censoring had locked up all original thinking in the 19th century. We need to be able to hear things before the would-be censors tell us how to think about them.

Our language needs to de-weaponized.