This is not an original observation, but as a relative outsider, there is something very strange and religious about the absolute taboo of even mentioning the “n-word.” The way it’s treated in American culture has big “drawing Mohammed” energy.
Maybe in a few hundred years it will be so taboo no one remembers what the word actually was, and it will go the way of the original pronounciation of YHWH.
This is not an original observation, but as a relative outsider, there is something very strange and religious about the absolute taboo of even mentioning the “n-word.” The way it’s treated in American culture has big “drawing Mohammed” energy.
Maybe in a few hundred years it will be so taboo no one remembers what the word actually was, and it will go the way of the original pronounciation of YHWH.
It's part of the ongoing weird psy-ops we're all being subjected to (willingly???), in the name of "anti-racism." I hear this horrible, awful, magically evil, world-destroying word a zillion times a day up here in Harlem. Coming from the cars and boomboxes blasting the shitty kind of hip-hop all day and night long. I hear that same shitty music using "that HORRIBLE word" played at picnic parties for KIDS in Riverbank State Park. I hear the bruthas and sistas - and mothers with their babies - on the street use it CONSTANTLY. ("Oh, but it's different when historically marginalized communities use the word. They're 'reclaiming it.'" Yeah, no. Let's stop pretending this word is anything special. Yeah, it sort of has this unique "horrifying history" but the reality TODAY is quite different. It's just another stupid fucking word. There are plenty of words with awful histories which we are not forced to pretend have this magical evil spell on them. I'm just tired of all the looniness we "good" Progressives are supposed to pretend we "believe". Fuck the N word and all the bullshit moralizing about it. I'm just sick of all the bullshit. So sue me. I don't care.
The part I find strange is that there are little kids calling each other the N-word but ending with A. But if a white person repeats the N word ending in A from a song, THAT is traumatizing for.vlack people. Even though no white person used the N word ending in A ro dehumanize a black person
It's another outgrowth of the "trauma industry" we have all witnessed growing in the past few years. Also, the "horror, the horror" surrounding this word is mostly a distraction from plenty of REAL issues which need to be addressed. Like everything else in Woke-Land, a distraction and misdirection, with serious consequences...
“Queer” used to be a slur. Now it’s a celebrated identity/label. Maybe it’s part of the weird postmodern “language creates reality “ theory? Like if you say the n word, you somehow have transformed a Black person in 2023 into an enslaved person in the 1700s.
Would be fascinating seeing academia try to reclaim this one. N***a Studies? N****r Studies?
I actually think art and integration is going to eventually soften the term in popular culture. I think it was going this way for a bit until the modern DEI movement really started problematizing for profit, but I haven't done/read any serious ethnographies on the matter.
Etymology fact of the day: the Germanic languages have a different word for "bear" than the other Indo-European languages (whose words are related to "ursus," "ours," arktos," etc.) because the early Germanic-speaking people were so afraid of bears that they used a euphemism ("the brown one") to refer to them. This is why "bear" in English, German, the Scandinavian languages, etc., is so similar to the word for "brown" rather than to other Indo-European words for "bear."
A few hundred years may be optimistic. As long as race-hustler activists get to issue a fatwa against anyone who even mentions the word (with support from the MSM and academia), the taboo will still exist. And yes, there is something quasi-religious about the entire concept, on par with blasphemy.
Circa 2008~2009, I went to a college threatre production of the musical "Big River" at East Carolina U. I remember that there was a note in the programs explaining the the word "nigger" was used in the production, as it was authentic to the history, or whatever, and not meant to cause offense. A trigger warning, if you will. I wonder if this would be allowed today.
This is not an original observation, but as a relative outsider, there is something very strange and religious about the absolute taboo of even mentioning the “n-word.” The way it’s treated in American culture has big “drawing Mohammed” energy.
Maybe in a few hundred years it will be so taboo no one remembers what the word actually was, and it will go the way of the original pronounciation of YHWH.
It's part of the ongoing weird psy-ops we're all being subjected to (willingly???), in the name of "anti-racism." I hear this horrible, awful, magically evil, world-destroying word a zillion times a day up here in Harlem. Coming from the cars and boomboxes blasting the shitty kind of hip-hop all day and night long. I hear that same shitty music using "that HORRIBLE word" played at picnic parties for KIDS in Riverbank State Park. I hear the bruthas and sistas - and mothers with their babies - on the street use it CONSTANTLY. ("Oh, but it's different when historically marginalized communities use the word. They're 'reclaiming it.'" Yeah, no. Let's stop pretending this word is anything special. Yeah, it sort of has this unique "horrifying history" but the reality TODAY is quite different. It's just another stupid fucking word. There are plenty of words with awful histories which we are not forced to pretend have this magical evil spell on them. I'm just tired of all the looniness we "good" Progressives are supposed to pretend we "believe". Fuck the N word and all the bullshit moralizing about it. I'm just sick of all the bullshit. So sue me. I don't care.
The part I find strange is that there are little kids calling each other the N-word but ending with A. But if a white person repeats the N word ending in A from a song, THAT is traumatizing for.vlack people. Even though no white person used the N word ending in A ro dehumanize a black person
It's another outgrowth of the "trauma industry" we have all witnessed growing in the past few years. Also, the "horror, the horror" surrounding this word is mostly a distraction from plenty of REAL issues which need to be addressed. Like everything else in Woke-Land, a distraction and misdirection, with serious consequences...
“Queer” used to be a slur. Now it’s a celebrated identity/label. Maybe it’s part of the weird postmodern “language creates reality “ theory? Like if you say the n word, you somehow have transformed a Black person in 2023 into an enslaved person in the 1700s.
Would be fascinating seeing academia try to reclaim this one. N***a Studies? N****r Studies?
I actually think art and integration is going to eventually soften the term in popular culture. I think it was going this way for a bit until the modern DEI movement really started problematizing for profit, but I haven't done/read any serious ethnographies on the matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e61cxZtPe2I
Part of the ever-growing Trauma Industry.
Etymology fact of the day: the Germanic languages have a different word for "bear" than the other Indo-European languages (whose words are related to "ursus," "ours," arktos," etc.) because the early Germanic-speaking people were so afraid of bears that they used a euphemism ("the brown one") to refer to them. This is why "bear" in English, German, the Scandinavian languages, etc., is so similar to the word for "brown" rather than to other Indo-European words for "bear."
A few hundred years may be optimistic. As long as race-hustler activists get to issue a fatwa against anyone who even mentions the word (with support from the MSM and academia), the taboo will still exist. And yes, there is something quasi-religious about the entire concept, on par with blasphemy.
Circa 2008~2009, I went to a college threatre production of the musical "Big River" at East Carolina U. I remember that there was a note in the programs explaining the the word "nigger" was used in the production, as it was authentic to the history, or whatever, and not meant to cause offense. A trigger warning, if you will. I wonder if this would be allowed today.
I'd bet no.