why are black people called n***ers?

Answer 1

It is an unfortunate corruption of the Spanish word "*****" for black.

Answer 2

Good question. Wish I really knew. Probably for an easier sounding name to *****, but for some reason gets linked to black slavery if another person who isn't black says it to another black person. It's kinda f*cked up if you ask me. Whatever happened in the past is OVER, and black people using and authorizing that name only to those in the black community is only increasing more segregation to other races and cultures. They should ban the use of that name out of the English language, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and last, but not least EVERYONE'S (including blacks) mouths.

Answer 3

Lazy plantation owners couldn't pronounce 'negroes' properly.
BTW, '*****' is also an English word. We only started calling them 'black' at their request back in the 1960's. Which is why I think it's funny that they don't like that term either, now, and want to be called 'African Americans'. I can go along with black, but if they've never set foot on that continent, how can we in conscience call them African?

Answer 4

As someone stated, it was a term used to identify persons of african decent who at the time were slaves. The term has gravitated to the 20th and 21st Century to demean and cause verbal insult to black people. But since the term means lazy or slow people...that could mean also any race of people that were just as lazy or slow right?

Answer 5

The Spanish word ***** originates from the Latin word niger, meaning black. In English, ***** or neger became negar and finally ni**er, most likely under influence of French nègre (also derived from the Latin niger).

Neger (sometimes spelled "neggar") prevailed in northern New York under the Dutch and also in Philadelphia, in its Moravian and Pennsylvania Dutch communities. For example, the African Burial Ground in New York City was originally known as "Begraaf Plaats van de Neger."

In the United States, the word ni**er was not originally considered derogatory, but merely denotative of black, as it was in much of the world. In nineteenth-century literature, there are many uses of the word ni**er with no intended negative connotation. Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Joseph Conrad (who published The ****** of the 'Narcissus' in 1897) used the word without racist intent.

The perception of the term ni**er as derogatory is no doubt related to the fact that the black people were a race regarded by many white people of the time as inferior, lazy, simian in appearance, stupid, and criminally inclined.

Other terms denoting black people were intended to be derogatory from their conception, among them darky, *******, porch monkey, coon, and Spook. All of these terms, although considered acceptable by many groups of white people until recent decades, are now almost universally regarded as offensive among English-speakers worldwide.

In the 1800s, as ****** began to acquire the pejorative connotation it holds today, the term "Coloured" gained popularity in as a kinder alternative to ***** and associated terms. For example, abolitionists in Boston, Massachusetts posted warnings to "Colored People of Boston and vicinity". The name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reflects the the preference for this term at the time of the NAACP's founding in 1909.

Southern dialect in many parts of the southern United States changes the pronunciation of "*****" to "nigra" (used most famously by Lyndon B. Johnson, a proponent of civil rights). The form "ni**er" may have come about from "nigra" through metathesis.

Black was generally the preferred term from the late 1960s until the 1990s, but has now been displaced in politically correct usage by African American, which resembles the term Afro-American that was in vogue in the early 1970s. However, black continues in widespread popular use as a racial designation and is rarely regarded as offensive.

Today the word is occasionally spelled nigguh or even nikuh in imitation of some speakers' pronunciation. However, the forms ***** and ****** are far more common alternatives. Other variations designed to avoid the term itself include nookah, nukka, ****** and the much older "jigger".

Answer 6

It comes from the root word "niger" or "*****" which means black. There is no reason that it should be considered a racial slur because it simply means black. But as with many words in our vocabulary, it has come to mean something other than what it's original meaning was. Words like gay (happy, homo), queer (odd, homo), bad (bad, good), hot (hot, nice looking)

Answer 7

They [blacks] are called that because many people believe in calling it as they see it. And with "VERY" rare exception, blacks do nothing to disprove that term for them is correctly applied.

Answer 8

You might want to rephrase that sentence.

black people WERE called that by lazy fat plantation owners to degrade blacks.

They were called lazy *******(although our ancestors broke their back to help build America, but as usual, the white man takes credit) to make blacks work harder.

Answer 9

Are you generalising? Because I haven't done so, and no one in my family has either. Now, if you are asking why WERE they, then I would suppose it has something to do with lazy tongues and minds to match trying to say the word "*****".

Answer 10

1. it is either a corruption of "*****" or-
2. it comes from the region of Niger in africa.
I have heard both of these theories and tend to go along with number 1.