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ownership of the n word
Do you really want to debate this?
Blacks using the word nigger is like women calling themselves bitches- an incidence of cultural reclamation of a word- basically using it before it can be thrown at us in an attempt to degrade or demean. That doesn't make it a good word, it just means that it has a different context and meaning when MANY black people say it, a feeling of brotherhood in struggle.
I can not think of one singleincidence of a white person using the word nigger that can be seen in this light. In my opinion, there is no sense in which a white person can use the word nigger and have a feeling of brotherhood with blacks, or culturalreclamation of this term. Why? Because of the historical fact of why and how nigger was said by whites.
I personally am past the whole debate. You can call me a nigger all day and I'm going to do what I have to do. When all's said and done a word has no power to demean me, but it certainly has the ability to make you look like an asshole when you say it.
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It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity.-- G.K. Chesterton
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Hybrid Mode
