- Joined
- Dec 4, 2017
- Posts
- 7,148
Okay, this question pops up every now and then.
For those who are offended by such, here’s a trigger warning. The ‘N’ word follows.
It’s coming.
Brace yourself, Gentle Reader.
Be aware.
If you’re going to be traumatized, be elsewhere.
So, here goes.
Nigger.
It’s an ugly word, a word I don’t like, a word with too much dark history associated. The world would be better off if it had never been spoken.
But it’s just a word.
Now that I’ve overcome my repugnance and used it, the world continues to turn. The seas are not boiling, the sun has not gone black, the moon has not turned to blood.
The point I am trying to make (and, as usual, am fumbling with) is that we should not be afraid of words. Even bad ones.
Being afraid is entirely different than being cautious or being courteous. There is too much timorousness evident whenever this topic comes up, almost as if merely muttering the devil’s name will bring him into our midst.
It’s a word, dammit. If used carelessly, it should be challenged. If intentionally used to hurt, then its use is something to be instantly and utterly condemned. But the reality is that one cannot look at certain times and places without it being there.
Granted that the issue is complicated by the very nature of this site, but one cannot write something of the slightest depth about, say, the antebellum South or July 1967 Detroit without that word being central. Dry essays and moralistic polemics on history and race relations are possible, perhaps, but any kind of emotional tale involving people actually speaking without that word being used risks Bowdlerizing insipidness.
We mock our Victorian ancestors for their sexual prissiness, for their pretences that some things didn’t exist. Is this any different?
“But,” someone will reply, “all that nonsense was just prudery gone wild. It didn’t hurt anybody and the N-word does hurt!”
I suspect a Victorian matron, intelligent and well-meaning, would differ. How horrible it would be, how emotionally painful it would become if people could just walk around dropping the F-word, the S-word or the P-word or, God forbid, the V-word!
“But words have power!”
So they do, but only that power which we ourselves give them. Let’s not give this one any more power by being too frightened to whisper it, a racial ‘He who must not be named!’
Enough rant. ‘Nigger’ is a bad word. It’s one I don’t use in my daily life and I’ve never used it in writing fiction. But it’s just a word and, sometimes, the only word that works. Be aware of its history, be aware of its potential to hurt, but let’s stop behaving like it’s a satanic spell. Use it when absolutely necessary and then don’t lose sleep over it.
For those who are offended by such, here’s a trigger warning. The ‘N’ word follows.
It’s coming.
Brace yourself, Gentle Reader.
Be aware.
If you’re going to be traumatized, be elsewhere.
So, here goes.
Nigger.
It’s an ugly word, a word I don’t like, a word with too much dark history associated. The world would be better off if it had never been spoken.
But it’s just a word.
Now that I’ve overcome my repugnance and used it, the world continues to turn. The seas are not boiling, the sun has not gone black, the moon has not turned to blood.
The point I am trying to make (and, as usual, am fumbling with) is that we should not be afraid of words. Even bad ones.
Being afraid is entirely different than being cautious or being courteous. There is too much timorousness evident whenever this topic comes up, almost as if merely muttering the devil’s name will bring him into our midst.
It’s a word, dammit. If used carelessly, it should be challenged. If intentionally used to hurt, then its use is something to be instantly and utterly condemned. But the reality is that one cannot look at certain times and places without it being there.
Granted that the issue is complicated by the very nature of this site, but one cannot write something of the slightest depth about, say, the antebellum South or July 1967 Detroit without that word being central. Dry essays and moralistic polemics on history and race relations are possible, perhaps, but any kind of emotional tale involving people actually speaking without that word being used risks Bowdlerizing insipidness.
We mock our Victorian ancestors for their sexual prissiness, for their pretences that some things didn’t exist. Is this any different?
“But,” someone will reply, “all that nonsense was just prudery gone wild. It didn’t hurt anybody and the N-word does hurt!”
I suspect a Victorian matron, intelligent and well-meaning, would differ. How horrible it would be, how emotionally painful it would become if people could just walk around dropping the F-word, the S-word or the P-word or, God forbid, the V-word!
“But words have power!”
So they do, but only that power which we ourselves give them. Let’s not give this one any more power by being too frightened to whisper it, a racial ‘He who must not be named!’
Enough rant. ‘Nigger’ is a bad word. It’s one I don’t use in my daily life and I’ve never used it in writing fiction. But it’s just a word and, sometimes, the only word that works. Be aware of its history, be aware of its potential to hurt, but let’s stop behaving like it’s a satanic spell. Use it when absolutely necessary and then don’t lose sleep over it.
Last edited:
