The wordnigger is aracial slur directed atblack people. References tonigger have been increasingly replaced by theeuphemistic"the N-word", notably in cases wherenigger ismentioned but not directly used.[1] In an instance oflinguistic reappropriation, the termnigger is also used casually and fraternally amongAfrican Americans, most commonly in the form ofnigga, whose spelling reflects thephonology ofAfrican-American English.[1][2]
The origin of the word lies with theLatin adjectiveniger ([ˈnɪɡɛr]), meaning "black".[1][2] It was initially seen as a relatively neutral term, essentially synonymous with the English wordnegro. Early attested uses during theAtlantic slave trade (16th–19th century) often conveyed a merely patronizing attitude. The word took on aderogatory connotation from the mid-18th century onward, and "degenerated into an overt slur" by the middle of the 19th century. Some authors still used the term in a neutral sense up until the later part of the 20th century, at which point the use ofnigger became increasingly controversial, regardless of context or intent of the speaker.[1][2][3]
Because the wordnigger has historically "wreaked symbolic violence, often accompanied by physical violence",[2] it began to disappear from general popular culture from the second half of the 20th century onward, with the exception of cases derived fromintra-group usage such aship-hop culture.[2] TheMerriam-Webster Online Dictionary describes the term as "perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English".[2] TheOxford English Dictionary writes that "this word is one of the most controversial in English, and is liable to be considered offensive or taboo in almost all contexts (even when used as a self-description)".[1] At thetrial of O. J. Simpson, prosecutorChristopher Darden referred to it as "the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language".[4]
Intra-group usage has been criticized by some contemporary Black American authors, a group of them (theeradicationists) calling for the total abandonment of its usage (even under the variantnigga), which they see as contributing to the "construction of an identity founded on self-hate".[2][5][6][7] In wider society, the inclusion of the wordnigger in classic works of literature (as inMark Twain's 1884 bookThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and in more recent cultural productions (such asQuentin Tarantino's 1994 filmPulp Fiction and 2012 filmDjango Unchained) has sparked controversy and ongoing debate.[5][7]
The wordnigger has also been historically used to designate "any person considered to be of low social status" (as in the expressionwhite nigger) or "any person whose behavior is regarded as reprehensible". In some cases, with awareness of the word's offensive connotation, but without intention to cause offense, it can refer to a "victim of prejudice likened to that endured by African Americans" (as inJohn Lennon's 1972 song "Woman Is the Nigger of the World").[1]
The wordnigger, then spelled in English asneger orniger, appeared in the 16th century as an adaptation of Frenchnègre, itself from Spanishnegro. They go back to theLatin adjectiveniger ([ˈnɪɡɛr]), meaning "black".[2][1]
In its original English-language usage,nigger was a word for a dark-skinned individual. The earliest known published use of the term dates from 1574, in a work alluding to "the Nigers ofAethiop, bearing witnes".[8] According to theOxford English Dictionary, the first derogatory usage of the termnigger was recorded two centuries later, in 1775.[9]
In 1619colonial America,John Rolfe usednegars in describing the African slaves shipped to theVirginia colony.[10] LaterAmerican English spellings,neger andneggar, prevailed inNew York under the Dutch, as well as in themetropolitan Philadelphia's Moravian andPennsylvania Dutch communities; theAfrican Burial Ground in New York City originally was known by the Dutch nameBegraafplaats van de Neger (Cemetery of the Negro). An early occurrence ofneger in American English dates from 1625 inRhode Island.[11]LexicographerNoah Webster suggested theneger spelling in place ofnegro in his 1806 dictionary.[12]
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the word "nigger" also described an actual labor category, which African American laborers adopted for themselves as a social identity, and thus white people used the descriptor word as a distancing or derogatory epithet, as if "quoting black people" and their non-standard language.[13] During the early 1800s to the late 1840sfur trade in the Western United States, the word was spelled "niggur", and is often recorded in the literature of the time.George Ruxton used it in his "mountain man" lexicon, without pejorativeconnotation. "Niggur" was evidently similar to the modern use of "dude" or "guy". This passage from Ruxton'sLife in the Far West illustrates the word in spoken form—the speaker here referring to himself: "Travler, marm, this niggur's no travler; I ar' a trapper, marm, a mountain-man, wagh!"[14] It was not used as a term exclusively for blacks among mountain men during this period, as Indians, Mexicans, and Frenchmen and Anglos alike could be a "niggur".[15] "The noun slipped back and forth from derogatory to endearing."[16]
By 1859, the term was clearly used to offend, in an attack onabolitionist John Brown.[17]
The term "colored" or "negro" became a respectful alternative. In 1851, theBoston Vigilance Committee, anabolitionist organization, posted warnings to theColored People of Boston and vicinity. Writing in 1904, journalistClifton Johnson documented the "opprobrious" character of the wordnigger, emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored" or "negro".[18] By the turn of the century, "colored" had become sufficiently mainstream that it was chosen as the racial self-identifier for theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 2008 Carla Sims, its communications director, said "the term 'colored' is not derogatory, [the NAACP] chose the word 'colored' because it was the most positive description commonly used [in 1909, when the association was founded]. It's outdated and antiquated but not offensive."[19]
Mark Twain, in the autobiographic bookLife on the Mississippi (1883), used the term within quotes, indicatingreported speech, but used the term "negro" when writing in his ownnarrative persona.[20]Joseph Conrad published a novella in Britain with the titleThe Nigger of the "Narcissus" (1897); in the United States, it was released asThe Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle; the original had been called "the ugliest conceivable title" in a British review[21] and American reviewers understood the change as reflecting American "refinement" and "prudery."[22]
A style guide toBritish English usage,H.W. Fowler'sA Dictionary of Modern English Usage, states in the first edition (1926) that applying the wordnigger to "others than full or partial negroes" is "felt as an insult by the person described, & betrays in the speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a very arrogant inhumanity"; but the second edition (1965) states "N. has been described as 'the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks'".[23] The quoted formula goes back to the writings of the American journalistHarold R. Isaacs, who used it in several writings between 1963 and 1975.[24] Black characters inNella Larsen's 1929 novelPassing view its use as offensive; one says "I'm really not such an idiot that I don't realize that if a man calls me a nigger, it's his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again."[25]
By the late 1960s, the social change brought about by thecivil rights movement had legitimized theracial identity wordblack as mainstream American English usage to denote black-skinned Americans of African ancestry. PresidentThomas Jefferson had used this word of his slaves in hisNotes on the State of Virginia (1785), but "black" had not been widely used until the later 20th century. (Seeblack pride, and, in the context of worldwide anti-colonialism initiatives,Négritude.)
In the 1980s, the term "African American" was advanced analogously to such terms as "German American" and "Irish American", and was adopted by major media outlets. Moreover, as acompound word,African American resembles thevogue wordAfro-American, an early-1970s popular usage. Some Black Americans continue to use the wordnigger, often spelled asnigga andniggah, without irony, either to neutralize the word's impact or as a sign of solidarity.[26]
Surveys from 2006 showed that the American public widely perceived usage of the term to be wrong or unacceptable, but that nearly half of whites and two-thirds of blacks knew someone personally who referred to blacks by the term.[27] Nearly one-third of whites and two-thirds of blacks said they had personally used the term within the last five years.[27]
The wordnigger was once widely used in the names of products, colors, plants, places, andas people's nicknames, among others. Such uses have fallen out of favor since the 20th century.
"Niggers in the White House"[28] was written in reaction toan October 1901 White House dinner hosted by Republican PresidentTheodore Roosevelt, who had invitedBooker T. Washington—an African-American presidential advisor—as a guest. The poem reappeared in 1929 after First LadyLou Hoover, wife of PresidentHerbert Hoover, invitedJessie De Priest, the wife of African-American congressmanOscar De Priest, toa tea for congressmen's wives at the White House.[29] The identity of the author—who used the byline "unchained poet"—remains unknown.
In explaining his refusal to beconscripted to fight the Vietnam War (1955–1975), professional boxerMuhammad Ali said, "NoVietcong ever called me nigger."[30] Later, his modified answer was the title of a documentary,No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger (1968), about the front-line lot of the U.S. Army black soldier in combat in Vietnam.[31] An Ali biographer reports that, when interviewed byRobert Lipsyte in 1966, the boxer actually said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong."[32]
On February 28, 2007, theNew York City Council symbolically banned the use of the wordnigger; however, there is no penalty for using it. This formal resolution also requests excluding fromGrammy Award consideration every song whose lyrics contain the word; however, Ron Roecker, vice president of communication for the Recording Academy, doubted it will have any effect on actual nominations.[33][34]
The word can be invoked politically for effect. When Detroit mayorKwame Kilpatrick came under intense scrutiny for his conduct in 2008, he deviated from an address to the city council, saying, "In the past 30 days, I've been called a nigger more than any time in my entire life." Opponents accused him of "playing therace card" to save his political life.[35][36]
Theimplicit racism of the wordnigger has generally rendered its usetaboo. Magazines and newspapers typically do not use this word but instead print censored versions such as "n*gg*r", "n**ger", "n——" or "the N-word";[37] seebelow.
The use ofnigger in older literature has become controversial because of the word's modern meaning as a racist insult. One of the most enduring controversies has been the word's use in Mark Twain's novelAdventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).Huckleberry Finn was the fifth most challenged book during the 1990s, according to theAmerican Library Association.[38] The novel is written from the point of view, and largely in the language, of an uneducated white boy, who is drifting down the Mississippi River on a raft with an adult escaped slave, Jim. The word "nigger" is used (mostly about Jim) over 200 times.[39][40] Twain's advocates note that the novel is composed in then-contemporary vernacular usage, not racist stereotype, because Jim, the black man, is a sympathetic character.
In 2011, a new edition published byNewSouth Books replaced the wordnigger withslave and also removed the wordinjun. The change was spearheaded by Twain scholarAlan Gribben in the hope of "countering the 'pre-emptive censorship'" that results from the book's being removed from school curricula over language concerns.[41][42] The changes sparked outrage from criticsElon James,Alexandra Petri andChris Meadows.[43]
In his 1999 memoirAll Souls, Irish-AmericanMichael Patrick MacDonald describes how many white residents of theOld Colony Housing Project inSouth Boston used this meaning to degrade the people considered to be of lower status, whether white or black.[44]
Of course, no one considered himself a nigger. It was always something you called someone who could be considered anything less than you. I soon found out there were a few black families living in Old Colony. They'd lived there for years and everyone said that they were okay, that they weren't niggers but just black. It felt good to all of us to not be as bad as the hopeless people in D Street or, God forbid, the ones in Columbia Point, who were both black and niggers. But now I was jealous of the kids in Old Harbor Project down the road, which seemed like a step up from Old Colony ...
The word's usage in literature has led to it being a point of discussion in university lectures as well. In 2008,Arizona State University English professor Neal A. Lester created what has been called "the first ever college-level class designed to explore the word 'nigger'".[45] Starting in the following decade, colleges struggled with attempts to teach material about the slur in a sensitive manner. In 2012, a sixth grade Chicago teacher Lincoln Brown was suspended after repeating the contents of a racially charged note being passed around in class. Brown later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the headmaster and the Chicago public schools.[46] A New Orleans high school also experienced controversy in 2017.[47] Such increased attention prompted Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, the daughter ofRichard Pryor and a professor atSmith College, to give a talk opining that the word was leading to a "social crisis" in higher education.[48]
In addition to Smith College,Emory University,Augsburg University,Southern Connecticut State University, andSimpson College all suspended professors in 2019 over referring to the word "nigger" by name in classroom settings.[49][50][51] In two other cases, a professor atPrinceton decided to stop teaching a course onhate speech after students protested his utterance of "nigger" and a professor at DePaul had his law course cancelled after 80% of the enrolled students transferred out.[52][53] Instead of pursuing disciplinary action, a student at theCollege of the Desert challenged his professor in aviral class presentation which argued that her use of the word in a lecture was not justified.[54]
In 2018, the head of the media companyNetflix,Reed Hastings, fired his chief communications officer, Jonathan Friedland, for using the word twice during internal discussions about sensitive words.[55] In explaining why, Hastings wrote:
[The word's use] in popular media like music and film have created some confusion as to whether or not there is ever a time when the use of the N-word is acceptable. For non-Black people, the word should not be spoken as there is almost no context in which it is appropriate or constructive (even when singing a song or reading a script). There is not a way to neutralize the emotion and history behind the word in any context. The use of the phrase 'N-word' was created as a euphemism, and the norm, with the intention of providing an acceptable replacement and moving people away from using the specific word. When a person violates this norm, it creates resentment, intense frustration, and great offense for many.[56]
The following year, screenwriterWalter Mosley turned down a job after his human resources department took issue with him using the word to describe racism that he experienced as a black man.[57]
While defending Laurie Sheck, a professor who was cleared of ethical violations for quotingI Am Not Your Negro byJames Baldwin,John McWhorter wrote that efforts to condemn racist language by white Americans had undergonemission creep.[58] Similar controversies outside the United States have occurred at theUniversity of Western Ontario in Canada and the Madrid campus ofSyracuse University.[59][60] In June 2020, Canadian news hostWendy Mesley was suspended and replaced with a guest host after she attended a meeting on racial justice and, in the process of quoting a journalist, used "a word that no-one like me should ever use".[61] In August 2020,BBC News, with the agreement of victim and family, mentioned the slur when reporting on a physical and verbal assault on the black NHS worker and musician K-Dogg. Within the week the BBC received over 18,600 complaints, the black radio host David Whitely resigned in protest, and the BBC apologized.[62]
In 2021, inTampa, Florida, a 27-year-old black employee at aDunkin' Donuts punched a 77-year-old white customer after the customer had repeatedly called the employee a nigger.[63] The customer fell to the floor and hit his head. Three days later, he died, having suffered askull fracture andbrain contusions. The employee was arrested and charged withmanslaughter. In aplea bargain, the employee pled guilty to felonybattery, and was sentenced to two years ofhouse arrest. In 2022, in explaining why the employee did not receive any jail time, Grayson Kamm, a spokesman for Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren, said "Two of the primary factors were the aggressive approach the victim took toward the defendant and everyone working with the defendant, and that the victim repeatedly used possibly the most aggressive and offensive term in the English language."[64]
Black listeners often react to the term differently, depending on whether it is used by white speakers or by black speakers. In the former case, it is regularly understood as insensitive or insulting; in the latter, it may carry notes of in-group disparagement, or it may be understood as neutral or affectionate, a possible instance ofreappropriation.[65]
In the black community,nigger is often rendered asnigga. This usage has been popularized by therap andhip-hop music cultures and is used as part of an in-group lexicon and speech. It is not necessarily derogatory and is often used to meanhomie orfriend.[66]
Acceptance of intra-group usage of the wordnigga is still debated,[66] although it has established a foothold amongst younger generations. TheNAACP denounces the use of bothnigga andnigger. As of 2001, trends indicated that usage of the term in intragroup settings is increasing even amongst white youth, due to the popularity of rap and hip hop culture.[67] LinguistKeith Allan rejects the view thatnigger is always a slur, arguing that it is also used as a marker of camaraderie and friendship, comparable to the British and Australian term "mate" or the American "buddy".[68]
According to Arthur K. Spears inDiverse Issues in Higher Education, 2006:
In many African-American neighborhoods, nigga is simply the most common term used to refer to any male, of any race or ethnicity. Increasingly, the term has been applied to any person, male or female. "Where y'all niggas goin?" is said with no self-consciousness or animosity to a group of women, for the routine purpose of obtaining information. The point:nigga is evaluatively neutral in terms of its inherent meaning; it may express positive, neutral, or negative attitudes;[69]
Kevin Cato, meanwhile, observes:
For instance, a show onBlack Entertainment Television, a cable network aimed at a Black audience, described the word nigger as a "term of endearment". "In the African American community, the wordnigga (notnigger) brings out feelings of pride." (Davis 1.) Here the word evokes a sense of community and oneness among Black people. Many teens I interviewed felt the word had no power when used amongst friends, but when used among white people the word took on a completely different meaning. In fact, comedian Alex Thomas on BET stated, "I still better not hear no white boy say that to me ... I hear a white boy say that to me, it means 'White boy, you gonna get your ass beat.'"[70]
Addressing the use ofnigger by black people, philosopher and public intellectualCornel West said in 2007:
There's a certain rhythmic seduction to the word. If you speak in a sentence, and you have to saycat,companion, orfriend, as opposed tonigger, then the rhythmic presentation is off. That rhythmic language is a form of historical memory for Black people ... When Richard Pryor came back from Africa, and decided to stop using the word onstage, he would sometimes start to slip up, because he was so used to speaking that way. It was the right word at the moment to keep the rhythm together in his sentence making.[71]
In the 2010s, "nigger" in its various forms saw use with increasing frequency by African Americans amongst themselves or in self-expression, the most common swear word in hip hop music lyrics.[72][73]Ta-Nehisi Coates suggested that it continues to be unacceptable for non-blacks to utter while singing or rapping along to hip-hop, and that by being so restrained it gives white Americans (specifically) an impression of what it is like to not be entitled to "do anything they please, anywhere". A concern often raised is whether frequent exposure will inevitably lead to a dilution of the extremely negative perception of the word among the majority of non-black Americans who currently consider its use unacceptable and shocking.[74]
In several English-speaking countries, "Niggerhead" or "nigger head" was used as a descriptive name for many sorts of things, including commercial products, places, plants and animals. It also is or was a colloquial technical term in industry, mining, and seafaring.Nigger as "hidden defect" derives from "nigger in the woodpile", a US slave-era phrase denoting escaped slaves hiding in train-transported woodpiles.[75] In the 1840s, theMorning Chronicle newspaper report seriesLondon Labour and the London Poor, byHenry Mayhew, records the usages of both "nigger" and the similar-sounding word "niggard" denoting a false bottom for a grate.[76]
In American English, "nigger lover" initially applied toabolitionists, then to white people sympathetic towards black Americans.[77] Theportmanteau wordwigger ('White' + 'nigger') denotes a white person emulating "street Black behavior", hoping to gain acceptance to thehip hop, thug, andgangsta sub-cultures.Norman Mailer wrote of the antecedents of this phenomenon in 1957 in his essayThe White Negro.
InUkraine, the word "zigger" (Ukrainian: 'зіггер') is sometimes used as a derogatory term byUkrainians to refer toRussian soldiers and those who follow theRussian government's propaganda. The word comes from replacing the first letter of "nigger" with a Z, which is a reference to the"Z" tactical symbol used by Russian troops andRussian nationalists.[78] It is used as a more offensive alternative to calling someone a "vatnik."
The prosecutor [Christopher Darden], his voice trembling, added that the "N-word" was so vile he would not utter it. "It's the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language."
One of the first uses oftheN-wordeuphemism by a major public figure came during the racially contentiousO. J. Simpson murder case in 1995. Key prosecution witness DetectiveMark Fuhrman, of theLos Angeles Police Department—who denied using racist language on duty—impeached himself with his prolific use ofnigger in tape recordings about his police work. Co-prosecutorChristopher Darden refused to say the actual word, calling it "the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language". Media personnel who reported on Fuhrman's testimony substitutedthe N-word fornigger.[81][82]
Niger (Latin for "black") occurs in Latinatescientific nomenclature and is theroot word for somehomophones ofnigger; sellers ofniger seed (used as bird feed), sometimes use the spellingNyjer seed. The classicalLatin pronunciation/ˈniɡeɾ/ sounds similar to the English/ˈnɪɡər/, occurring in biologic andanatomic names, such asHyoscyamus niger (black henbane), and even for animals that are in fact not black, such asSciurus niger (fox squirrel).
Nigra is the Latin feminine form ofniger (black), used in biologic and anatomic names such assubstantia nigra (black substance).
The wordniggardly (miserly) is etymologically unrelated tonigger, derived from theOld Norse wordnig (stingy) and theMiddle English wordnigon. In the US, this wordhas been misinterpreted as related tonigger and taken as offensive. In January 1999, David Howard, a white Washington, D.C., city employee, was compelled to resign after usingniggardly—in a financial context—while speaking with black colleagues, who took umbrage. After reviewing the misunderstanding, MayorAnthony A. Williams offered to reinstate Howard to his former position. Howard refused reinstatement but took a job elsewhere in the mayor's government.[83]
Negro[ˈne.ɣ̞ɾo] is the Spanish word for 'black', and is commonly a part of place names and proper names, particularly in theSouthwest of the United States.
Thedenotations ofnigger also include non-black/non-white and other disadvantaged people. Some of these terms are self-chosen, to identify with the oppression and resistance of black Americans; others areethnic slurs used by outsiders.
Jerry Farber's 1967 essay collection,The Student as Nigger, used the word as a metaphor for what he saw as the role forced on students. Farber had been, at the time, frequently arrested as a civil rights activist while beginning his career as a literature professor.
In his 1968 autobiographyWhite Niggers of America: The Precocious Autobiography of a Quebec "Terrorist",Pierre Vallières, aFront de libération du Québec leader, refers to the oppression of theQuébécois people in North America.
In 1969, in the course of being interviewed by the British magazineNova, artistYoko Ono said "woman is the nigger of the world"; three years later, her husband,John Lennon, published the songof the same name—about the worldwide phenomenon of discrimination against women—which was socially and politically controversial to US sensibilities.
Sand nigger, an ethnic slur against Arabs, andtimber nigger andprairie nigger, ethnic slurs against Native Americans, are examples of the racist extension ofnigger upon other non-white peoples.[85]
In 1978, singerPatti Smith used the word in "Rock N Roll Nigger". One year later in 1979, English singerElvis Costello used the phrase "white nigger" in his song "Oliver's Army". The slur usually remains uncensored on radio stations, but Costello's usage of the word came under scrutiny, particularly after he used racial slurs during a drunken argument withStephen Stills andBonnie Bramlett in 1979. In the same year, Costello's father published a letter inRolling Stone defending his son against accusations of racism, stating "Nothing could be further from the truth. My own background has meant that I am passionately opposed to any form of prejudice based on religion or race ... His mother comes from the tough multiracial area ofLiverpool, and I think she would still beat the tar out of him if his orthodoxy were in doubt".[86]
HistorianEugene Genovese, noted for bringing aMarxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and slaves in the South, uses the word pointedly inThe World the Slaveholders Made (1988).
For reasons common to the slave condition all slave classes displayed a lack of industrial initiative and produced the famous Lazy Nigger, who under Russian serfdom and elsewhere was white. Just as not all Blacks, even under the most degrading forms of slavery, consented to become niggers, so by no means all or even most of the niggers in history have been Black.
The editor ofGreen Egg, a magazine described inTheEncyclopedia of American Religions as a significant periodical, published an essay entitled "Niggers of the New Age". This argued thatNeo-Pagans were treated badly by other parts of theNew Age movement.[87]
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Other languages, particularlyRomance languages, have words that sound similar to or share etymological roots withnigger but do not necessarily mean the same. In some of these languages, the words refer to the color black in general and are not specifically used to refer to black people. When used to refer to black people, these words have acquired varying degrees of offensiveness, ranging from completely neutral (as inSpanishnegro) to highly racist (as inFinnishNeekeri). Examples of related words in other languages include:
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite journal}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Linguistic reclamation, also known as linguistic resignification or reappropriation, refers to the appropriation of a pejorative epithet by its target(s).
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