The Racial Epithet Solution

The Racial Epithet Solution

         Being a minority in the United States of America is hard. Since the founding of the nation, people whose skin color, ideologies, practices that didn’t match the Anglo-Saxon view of things were alienated and shunned. Most of the time without the help, whether voluntary or forced, of inferior beings as they were called, such as African Americans and Native Americans, White Americans wouldn’t be as well off as they are. In addition to the belief that minorities are inferior White Americans gave degrading names to other races that gives insight into the hatred they have for different people. The most notable negative connotation is the “n-word” given to African Americans. While at the origins of slavery the word was negative, in the past century the name has been embraced by the black community and used exclusively. However, I disagree with Dr. Nurnberg that the “n-word” should be used more to defeat it’s negative intent, as was his argument in “Taboo”, simply for the fact that if you’re not African American you shouldn’t want to say the “n-word”, nor should you care about the “n-word” since it doesn’t apply to their lifestyle or culture.
        In Dr. Nunberg’s article he states,” It has become an incantation that evokes all the ugly violence of racial hatred, in exactly the same way that dirty words are contaminated by the things they refer to, with a taint that bleeds through any quotation marks you put around them.”
        The “it” he’s referring to is the n-word, and his statement couldn’t prove why other races shouldn’t say it perfectly. The invocation of the word by people of non-African descent raises eyebrows to the fact that the use of the word initially is a racial slur. Using the laws of syllogism if two unknown people of different races meet, and one says a racial slur to the other, then that person is going to think that the other is racists. Sure context is taken into consideration but the history of the n-word conjures up rage and sadness that if kept being said conjures up more rage and sadness. The inevitable effect is what we’re facing now with the dodging and beating around the bush on the topic of the n-word.

         Some may say that if my point is true then African Americans have no business saying the word either. While those people definitely have a point if they’re not the same race then anything they say is null and void because they can’t tell African Americans as a culture what to do. Many Black social activists have called for the termination of the word in African American communities but it comes down to how they themselves feel about the situation. A big emphases is placed on “They themselves feel” because they meaning African Americans were the receivers of the slur and like a house that’s been possessed by a bank, they now have the rights to it. Sure help and advice from outsiders, in this case being people that aren’t African American, are welcome but the final decision lays with the African American people as a whole.
        Looking back over Nunberg’s arguments in his article, he does make some good points on how the universal non-use of the n-word does make it an awkward taboo subject. While I don’t have the answer for how to fix that I do know that the non-use of the n-word by non-blacks is comforting to African Americans who wouldn’t like to remember their ancestors past’s as slaves. For now the use of the n-word will only be subjected to African Americans and they will do with it what they please. As always there are those who share with the past ideology of racism and will use the racial slur against a person of color in a negative way. It is then that the public is reminded of the power of the word, and the people to who that power belongs.