In middle america last week, two black males were suspended from school for calling each other "Nig" as a form of greeting in the hallways. They are high school students, and part of the .8% population of kids that are other than white at this school. I think punishing them for this sends the wrong kind of message.

Punishing these two kids for calling each other "Nig", or "nigger", or even "worthless darkie" is wrong wrong wrong. Its wrong because by doing this, the administration of a self-described 'progressive' school system is still lending power and credence to these words. By accepting these words into their culture and using them as a form of greeting or humor, blacks are basically neutering it and robbing it of it's power. If it doesn't bother them to call each other Nig, it probably won't (or shouldn't) bother them to be called this by the racist asshole without a brain in his head.

In my opinion, words are just words, and we can't ever get rid of them just because they're 'bad.' What makes a word bad is how people perceive it in it's power and usage. Punishing these kids is a move that couldn't possibly be more ill-conceived or poorly thought out.

Nig.

Short observations
• Another musical take is the Yoko Ono song Woman is the Nigger of the World.
• Many people I know use the phrase "nigger-rigged" to denote a quick, shoddy, get-it-to-the-shop repair. A joke that came in with the PC movement was the phrase afro-engineered. Is this phrase equally offensive?
• In a recent case, a person was disciplined for using the word "niggardly". In a related story, illiteracy rates are skyrocketing...
• "I believe in calling a spade a spade -- or even a fucking shovel."

Certainly, as late as the mid-20th century, in England, the word could be used to describe a black person or thing without any offensive intent.

Watch the old war movie "The Dambusters". It's the one about the Royal Air Force using a revolutionary bouncing bomb in an attack on German Hydro schemes. The attack was made by 617 squadron led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson. The code word used to signal the success of the mission was the name of his dog.

What was the name of his dog ?

Nigger

What type of dog was it ?

A Black Labrador.

He loved his dog. He meant it no harm at all in giving it that name, and no comment at all is made on it in the film.

This word may have been derived from Spanish negro ('black' or 'black person'), possibly via British English or Dutch, which until very recently had neger as the neutral word for a dark-skinned person, or more specifically, a person of Bantu descent. The Spanish form is derived from Latin niger ('black', 'dark').

It's an unfortunate fact of life that perfectly clear and useful words can become laden with connotations and become tainted and suspect for that reason alone. This is probably what happened to 'nigger', too.

Nig"ger (?), n.

A negro; -- in vulgar derision or deprecation.

 

© Webster 1913.