Topic about N word, slavery, race in general, let's just lay all of this out there?

Question

1) N word, a controversial debate what is your stance. (I am Asian) I can see both the view of both Blacks-it is okay for cultural reasons- and Whites, really can not choose one over the other, but because of rap and pop culture I have seen some debates where the black person defending the use contradicts his or herself, first makes a good choice of words by saying this is a term of endearment and culture but then they mess up when they can not defend why when rappers use this it is right.
2) Slavery, IT WAS WRONG! However, Arabs were using Black slaves way before the whites and also there was during the same time period as black slaves white slaves captured by Arabs. Also who do you think sold you to the white people as slaves, one way or the other you would have been a slave either to the arabs or your own race. Slavery bad, I know but all races have dealt with it. Plus I have a African friend from Nigeria he looks at the African American community as..
do not answer wait for d rest

Answer 1

Slavery is absolutely wrong that is certain however you're right in saying that slavery did not originate in this country nor are blacks the only ones in history to have been enslaved. Egyptians held the Israelite as slaves and the Nazis enslaved Slavs and Pols as well as Jews. It's silly to claim that slavery in one part of the world or at one time in history was not as bad as it was elsewhere. I think if you were to tell a victim of the Holocaust that their treatment at the hands of the Nazis was not as bad as the slavery in America and Europe they would have a different take on it. It's also naive to think that they were not slaves.

Answer 2

This is an insanely long question. Maybe you could have broken it up. But here goes my try. The N word is used by blacks because they took it from the white community. It's like in high school how kids call themselves freaks. It takes the sting off when someone else says it because it means you are part of a community. As for rappers and such, they use the word to address the community. I don't see why the argument would fall apart there. Secondly, slavery is wrong, no matter who does it. Those are interesting facts, but the fact is we were doing it for way too long. And then there is the racism and segregation after that. I don't see what you're trying to say here. It is true, African Americans have more options than Nigerians, but it doesn't mean their life is cotton candy. How are you going to go to college and get a good job when you have to drop out of high school? There are only so many scholarships and government aid. There is the possibility to rise up, but laziness is not what holds people back. There are so many obstacles. Drugs, alcohol, abuse, and poor familial examples being a few. I'm not black. I am a white girl, but I have read quite a bit about the sixties. Mostly the Yippies, but also the Black Panthers. If you would like to email me we could have a great conversation. By the way, the Civil Rights leader you are referring too is Martin Luther King Jr, but there were many others involved. Not sure where your going with this rant, but the tension in race relations is the guilt of both sides, not just the blacks. Also, we must not forget our history, otherwise we will start lynching Mexicans. History does repeat itself, if we cannot learn from the past. I hope this helped.

Answer 3

The earliest slaves to the Americas were brought over on Spanish Galleons. The Spanish word for black is N.E.G.R.O. I have to use dots as Yahoo filters will not let it stand. In Spanish like in other Latin languages, the word can also be negrete or niagras according to how it is used in a sentence. The N word which is objectionable is a corruption of the Spanish word for black.



Now, I can understand blacks feeling they can use the N word among themselves. However, the problem is their children will be hearing it and they will go to school and use it and since many schools are integrated that can't be allowed. White children are going to pick it up. In earlier grades there is no way they can understand why if a word is wrong why some people can use it and they can't. In upper grades, like High School, it can lead to fights. So the word in schools, particularly integrated schools, must be a No No for everyone. In many white homes the word is not allowed and then their children go to school and hear it being said by black classemates.



Now, there is another word which is an old Anglo Saxon word and has been around since way before the days of African American slavery in the Americas called n.i.g.g.a.r.d.l.y. Its origin and meaning are entirely different but some people hearing it are ignorant of the fact and they take offense. It is a word that just means stingy.

It is a word that has absolutely nothing to do with African Americans or slavery.



In my sister's family, they made a point never to mention a person's skin color. My nephew when he was about 3 or 4 had to have colon surgery. While he was home with the housekeeper, someone brought him a present. When my sister and her husband asked him who it was he just said it was a man. Finally, they thought they would narrow down the prospects and my sister asked him, "what was the color of his skin?" He looked at her perplexed as he had never thought of that. She pinched his arm gently and asked him, "what was his skin color?" He was still perplexed and he answered,"orange." So then they were faced with the problem of trying to figure out who the orange man was.

Answer 4

Slavery still exists in some parts of the world.



As far as the "N" word, either it's a slur or it's not, in my opinion, and it can't be both at the same time for different peoples.



As with the recent Jessie Jackson's remarks about Obama and wishing to cut off a part of his maleness, it's been said Jackson gets a free pass on that one. If anyone else had said it, they would have been termed racist or had terroristic charges filed against them for making threatening remarks against another person, especially, a presidential candidate.



Personally, I think no one can have it both ways and that the "N" word should be laid to rest by all cultures. There is a word in the English language that means cowardly and a U.S. Congressman used it correctly but was attacked as it sounded too much like the "N" word. Will that proper word become redundant in the English language because someone, somewhere, not quite educated enough thought it sounded like a slur, even though it was not?



Next, will we become so politically correct that we change the names of fruits and veggies that might possibly offend some group?



Slavery happened a long time ago in Britain and the U.S. It's a part of history and is history. I say, let it remain in history as that's all it is. It's not an event happening in the Western world, well, except maybe in a few bedrooms, consensually.



In college I knew several Nigerians in my dorm hall. There was segregation in the town, not the college, nor among the general white population but by the American black population against the Nigerians.



For some reason, the black girls in the town would have nothing to do with these Nigerians. Never did figure that one out; they were decent guys.

Answer 5

What do you mean "we" would have been slaves either way. Yes, every culture has been enslaved but no where near the magnitude of Africans who were stripped from thier homeland and sent to a country to toil over crops and land stolen from Native Americans. You speak of slavery as the period between 1500's to about 1865 but you hardly understand that in 1896 in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case we still had in America a institution "Jim Crow", which seperated the races of blacks and whites. What you think because slavery ended that the degradation and poverty and ignorance of slavery would just end that day when the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect in 1865. Read up on the Berlin Confrence in 1885 where European Countries without anyone's admission just split Africa into thier own colonies they felt once they had the slaves they sould go back for more. You act as if the black man here in America after slavery didnt have to fight for 250 years after slavery to get independence. Do you know the first Civil Rights Act was in 1963?. 1963 was a long time from 1865 wasnt it 100 and something years before a black man and women could officially get the rights and autonomy which every American citizen should have at birth dont get it twisted. What do you mean all the races have dealt with it? No race in the history of mankind has had to endure moving millions of miles away from thier homeland never to return. So, before you start comparing serfdom in Russia and peonage farming in China or indentured servitude in Europe to SLAVERY IN AMERICA read up on the facts!!!! And your Nigierian friend is a fool.

Answer 6

First of all, I take exception to what CJ said. While I agree that African Slavery was wrong, to state that African Slavery in America was the worst form of slavery to ever exist in the history of mankind is a statement of fantasy. Abuse of slaves depended upon the slave owner. Compared to civilizations in China, Ancient Rome, Europe, I just don't see how you can say it was the worse here than anywhere else.



The N word - I view it as profanity. It is as offensive as the F word, the GD word and others. It is an insult and used to demean. Can it be a term of endearment used by Blacks speaking to other Blacks? Well my take is this: Each person has there level of offense. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. I get called all kind of names in my line of work including the N word (I'm white). I've have had to learn to let this kind of stuff roll right off my back. I took a while, but thick skin will come with age.



BTW, I'm a Southerner too. I know how the N word has been used, but take offense when some suggest that racism is strictly a product of the South. Also, as for a term of endearment, referring to Southern whites as "Cracker" was a insult in the Ante-Bellum South. However, we all refer to ourselves as "Cracker" today and it now means that your a native son.

Answer 7

I have read similar sh!t from the whitest racists on public boards since the internet as we know it first began. Chances are you are not Asian at all, but just in case you are...

This one's for you:

During WWII the Japanese would take the American POWs and sit them in the middle of the war prisoners' yard from morning to night. As the group got bored, someone would rise and suggest the group do something (wrestle, sport of some kind, word games) anything to break the monotony...In due time, those particular leaders would have disappeared. The Japanese were watching. They would take the leaders -- the risers -- because they knew if any prisoner was going to lead an escape or revolt, it would be those same men who rose to break the monotony.

By the time the risers were all sorted out, all who were left were the followers, the infirm (mentally and physically), and the risers who were smart enough to figure out ahead of time NOT TO RISE.

For the Asians from Japan, this made for a more manageable prisoner of war camp.

But, WWII only lasted - what? - 6 years...

Black enslavement during the triangle slave trade lasted over 400 years...

That's 400 years of snatching the black leaders who rose to dissuade anyone left not to follow their lead, not to rise, not to advance. After about the first hundred years, don't you think parents would start automatically teaching their kids not to rise if only to see their kids live to have kids of their own? Well, blacks did. To survive. Every time a generation of blacks rose, whites came along with their guns to kill, rape, and rob them into the stone age. Thus teaching that generation it is foolish to try to get anywhere in the white man's realm. Causing a profound and deep "race" hatred that is self-destructive, self-defeating, and autonomous.

So in your analysis of black motivations, terms, or "controversial debates" start not with the man of African descent. Begin with yourself and the racist aspect of the triangle slave trade of Europe, Africa, Americas.

Answer 8

First, you do make a valid point that salvery of all races has existed for centuries, however there is one major differnce. African American slaves faced the harshest treatment any population of slaves has ever faced. Unlike other slaves, these American slaves were brutally treated and their slave status was passed to subsequent generations, this was very rare in the rest of the world. The vast majority of slaves were bond servants who payed off their debt in servitude and then returned to freedom. These slaves however were to die as slaves unless their freedom was bought, a very rare occurance. All other slaves other than the American slaves were generally aquired by some form of war, either being captured and forced into slavery or captured by one african nation from another and sold over. Whereas the american slaves were sold by their own people. Additionally, other slave populations were allowed to gain an education on their own account without the fear of violence that was often inflicted upon African American slaves. All of this makes a very different slave environment than any other in the world.



As far as the N word, I frankly could not care less. I do not say nor would I care to, but those who use it as a term of enderment are free to do so in their own right. There comes a time when we need to put politically correct language aside and remember that we have common horrors of our past that we all need to move forward from.

Answer 9

Words are infused with meaning, and mean different things to different people. In my realm of experience, the word '******' has been used to mean vastly different things: in conversation with some of my neighbors, it is a term that paints a sloppy, hastily generalized image of a people who are lazy, decadent, and irresponsible; at the school at which I teach, a term of cameraderie and endearment amongst friends; in my grandmother's household, a term that refers to an exotic, dangerous, unknown people who should be feared and avoided. The word has yet a different meaning in an historical context.



Human language is a powerful medium; we have the power to build up and to destroy using words. I don't think, though, that it does any of us any good to willingly give up the power of our speech just because some people want us to. I have the good sense to use language that is appropriate to the setting; I don't, for instance, spew obscenities when I'm standing in line at the DMV (not a recipe for a happy experience, I've been told). But I'll be damned if I'll acquiesce to someone else's opinion about how I should use the most powerful weapon I possess.

Answer 10

I think you are ranting. The "n" word is a cruel reminder of indignities past. The irish were called white "n" words by the english. If an englishman called me that I'd send him back across the Atlantic with a broken jaw. I am almost certain you would be offended if someone used the "g" word. In short I suspect you are doing nothing more than "whining" yourself. Get Bent.

Answer 11

There is no arguments for the use of that word. It is wrong in

any context regardless of who utters it. As a nation, we should

strike it from our language along with several others, just like

the progeny of WWII Germany and Japan removed words from there languages.

Answer 12

All i can do is add another variable ever hear of Native Americans