When You Can Use the N-Word

And Why That’s the Wrong Question to Ask

This year’s Halloween brought out some fabulous and interesting costumes, but at the same time, it also brought out some of the worst in us. Much like in years past (but maybe more visible now), Halloween brought out another group of people dressing in blackface, some imitating Trayvon Martin, others imitating various black celebrities and characters.

Thankfully, society does a pretty good job shaming a lot of these people, and moving quickly about it, too. Celebrities in blackface tweet their selfies, and their followers are immediately on them. It’s harder and harder to act like you don’t know blackface is a bad idea.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t really hold true for other aspects of racial relations. To this day, we still have a lot of people asking, “When can I use the n-word?” For many white people, they see people of color using the word with reference to each other, and their response has been, “Either nobody at all says it, or we should be able to say it, too.”

I’d like to respond to this attitude, because I think it’s approaching the problem from the wrong perspective. The question isn’t, “When can I use the n-word?” The question is, “How does your community want to be referred to, and how can I respect that?”

Here’s the key difference: How a community wishes to be addressed by members outside of that community, and how members of that community address each other, are solely up to members of that community. Trying to impose those standards strips the community of its right to self-agency.

Put another way, true equality is the ability of a community to determine how people outside of that community can refer to them, and have that be respected. As a person of color, if I do not have the ability to say “I don’t want you to address me that way,” and have that be respected, then I am not your equal.

As for the, “Well nobody should say the word at all,” it’s the same problem. It is not up to people outside of my community to determine whether or not I can use that word to refer to myself or people in my community. That is up to me and my community. By saying that nobody should use the word, you are attempting to strip me of my equality in the same way that you would be by using the word against me in the first place.

What’s really at stake here is agency and choice. As equals in society, I have a choice about what words I find appropriate to use towards me, and what words I do not. If we are truly equals, then people outside of that community will respect that. It’s only when they choose not to respect that, that we have issues with equality.

Some people will say, “Well then why do black people use that word towards each other?” There’s an easy answer. The word has a lot of power — and black people in our community who appropriate and use the word are doing so for their own reasons. Having the ability to take that word and use it as their wish is empowering to them. Having someone from outside of the community try to take that away is disempowering.

People of all communities have words that they use amongst themselves, that are not okay for outsiders to use. Women will often call themselves and their girlfriends various words that men are not allowed (or should not be) to call them. People of different ethnicities have words they use for themselves, phrases that would be offensive if people outside their community were to use them.

In most families, people will refer to their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers or children as certain words, yet it would be rude of me to call someone’s sister that word, even if her brother says it to her earlier. As an outside to that community, it is not my place.

In his article, “Defending Dan Snyder,” Eric Bickels makes the argument that the name, “Redskins,” somehow is not actually offensive because only certain people are offended by it. He then says that the reason that people don’t use the n-word is because there will be riots if they do.

To Mr Bickels and those who share those opinions, I would like to make this clear: It is insulting and offensive to assume that the reason white people don’t use the n-word around blacks is due to fear of violence. That makes assumptions about me and my race and everyone who shares my skin color. People don’t use the n-word around black people because, as a community, we have asked the country not to do so, and most people in this country can respect that.

Part of equality is respect. If I cannot have your respect, then I am not your equal. If the only reason you don’t call me an offensive name is because you fear my retribution, you do not see me as an equal, you see me as an animal. Perhaps that is why you don’t believe in respecting the requests of those offended by the name, “Redskins.”

For the rest of us, we will work around you and those like you, and find ways to respect each other and our respective communities.