I am not being racist. I just wanted to know at roughly what point in time it stopped being the casual non-offensive word meaning black person and when it became a racial slur offending black people. Please, no racist answers. Also, the same question applies to other words that are now "racist" (I won't list them, that would be edging on racist) - at one point or another, they were not offensive and black people didn't mind them, but then at a turning point in time, these words began to be offensive. Why is this? And when did it happen?
2006-10-30 10:55:41 · 20 answers · asked by Andoo W 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Other - Society & Culture
I don't mean it has become offensive in the past few years, I'm talking a while back. Like think back to when white people took blacks as slaves. That wasn't right, but at this point in time, the word ****** wasn't wrong because it was not used to insult black people (taking them slave was insult enough) it was just used as we use the phrase "african american" or "black person" today.
2006-10-30 11:03:00 · update #1
Black people did mind then, but could do nothing about it then. Now something has been done about it, and even though some blacks use it as a term of endearment to each other, I think the word should just disappear.
2006-10-30 11:13:36 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
I would say that the N word was offensive from the beginning. ****** is a mispronunciation of Negro, which itself comes from Niger, which means "Great River". Niger and Nigeria are countries in Africa. To Europeans, the word Niger and its equivalents came to mean black: noir (France), nero (Italy), negro (Spanish). African and African-descended people became known as Negroes.
In the American South, the word Negro was mispronounced as ******. As Richard Pryor once said, the word became associated with our wretchedness. We were slaves with no rights. Therefore, ****** became a putdown, a word for a slave, a lackey, a yes man, a lower-positioned person.
Only recently have people tried to make the N word a badge of honor, as the gays have done with the word queer.
Wikipedia tells a slightly different story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/******
(Yahoo! blanks out the word; you'll have to type the word in yourself after the final slash.)
2006-10-30 19:02:58 · answer #2 · answered by MNL_1221 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
During the slave times (about the 1600's-1800's) when africans were stolen from their homeland and brought to the west to live, work and be sold as slaves, one of the descriptions that was given to them was nig*ers. It was like describing them as a different breed or animal and seperating them from the rest of the human race. This would be the period you have spoken about where it was a 'casual non-offensive word'.
The only reason it was casual and non-offensive then was because the people had no say in what they were called or they may be sold on, beaten or even killed.
Nowadays where everyone has free speech is it any wonder that black people dont like being called nig*ers by white people? It gives off an air of white superiority which should not be in place in a (supposedly) educated and modern society.
2006-10-31 05:05:19 · answer #3 · answered by Catwhiskers 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think this word became racist the moment it started to be used. As far as I can ascertain it began in the American south with the slaves and the white man's mispronunciation of the word negro. There are many examples of words which changed according to region. Another less offensive southern word which is also a b**tardisation of the original is "Onery" Which means angry, and unlike the other word always makes me smile when I hear it!
2006-10-30 19:02:09 · answer #4 · answered by wattie 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Right from the start of the slave trade the word ****** was aimed at coloured people in a derogatory fashion.The word originally was used to describe a certain shade of brown not unlike the description Pea green or Post Office Red that we use today.
2006-10-31 00:29:46 · answer #5 · answered by manthintall 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It always has been offensive, except people who the term is used against took it for themselves, I feel personally as a sort of empowerment, for example, the word cannot be offensive if we call ourselves it. Well why should we have a label full stop.
I think the word should not be used at all, especially in songs that are influencing our younger/future generation
2006-10-30 19:03:52 · answer #6 · answered by pinkytickle 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Offensive to whom?
I would disagree by arguing that such words have *always* been offensive to their intended targets. It is usually the ones using those words that do not find offense. True, some may have not specifically stated that those words are offensive, but that should not be taken as evidence that such an offense did not occur.
2006-10-30 19:05:56 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It has ALWAYS been racist. It comes from the word 'negro' (Spanish for black) which was a term used for black people by Southern whites for many years, not as a racist term, but as a label. N*gger is a vulgarity of negro.
2006-10-30 18:57:55 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
The word became offensive the first time it was yelled in anger as someone cracked a whip across another person's back.
2006-10-30 19:01:10 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
its always offensive to me when people are ignorant, and the word niggers came out of ignorance of the correct pronunciation of the word negro which is Spanish for black. so the words negro and black should be able to be used interchangeably without being offensive...but when stupid white trash rednecks decided they couldn't bother to treat other people as human beings that caused the connotations of racism that comes from the words these ignorant savages used
2006-10-30 19:01:53 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋