N-I-G-G-A. What does that spell?

These six letters embody polarization, hypocrisy, maliciousness, but also a form of endearment. The “n-word” can convey brotherly love, but it can also articulate hateful discrimination. This word has made careers and destroyed them.

In a country that ensures freedom of speech as a first amendment right, this is the only word that cannot be said by everyone. This word comes with a prerequisite because you must be black to say it.

“Nigger,” according the The Anti Defamation League, is a word derived from the word “negar,” that was first recorded in 1857 and originated with the dialectical pronunciation of “negro” in Northern England and Ireland. Today, the word has a much different meaning. It’s a racial slur used by non-Black Americans to demoralize and dehumanize Black men and women. The current connotation of the word dates back to America’s slave days where African Americans were forced to work and were killed because of their skin color. The “n-word” is still used today by both conscious and unconscious racists.

Racists come in all different sizes, colors, and levels of consciousness. A conscious racist is fully aware that he/she hates minorities because of their skin color. They are comfortable calling a black person a “nigger” to their face. They actively try to keep minorities in their “rightful” place at the bottom of the social hierarchy and will achieve their goals through lynch mobs, Klan rallies, hidden-agenda politics, and other racist protests.

Unconscious racists, on the other hand, are difficult to identify, but they are just as dangerous. They claim that they are color blind, but they lock their car doors in black neighborhoods and cross the street when they see a black man on their side of the sidewalk. They are also the ones that claim that affirmative action is reverse racism. Color blindness, the claim that people see no differences between people based on skin color, would be fine if there weren’t obvious disparities between the races that need to be addressed. They don’t believe that “nigga” can only apply to blacks. Anyone can be a “nigga” in their world and believing that anyone is a “nigga” is a complete misunderstanding of the history of the word.

“Nigga” was developed by Blacks in an attempt to defy White Americans’ derogatory and disrespectful racial epithet. When said by black people, the word brings them closer to one another and forms a bond between brothers and sisters in a foreign world that is often unfair to them.

The “n-word” has grown popular in black culture today. If you turn on any hip-hop station, you will hear this word celebrated or bleeped out, and the “n-word” is often voiced in casual conversation between African Americans.

Black culture is also viewed as cool – many non-Black Americans try to imitate the behavior, dialect, and clothing of Black Americans. In order to fully assimilate, they find it convenient and sometimes necessary to use the “n-word.” Since Whites are not Blacks they attempt to gain the acceptance of Blacks by acting like them, dressing like them, and talking like them.

“Black people say it to each other all the time and it’s in all their music so why can’t I say it?” non-Whites might ask. This word was created in an act to defy their pale-skinned oppressors. Blacks became proud of their skin color, which racist Americans, who saw Blacks as subservient thought, was a threat to their dominance. Using the “N-word” if you are white is offensive and disrespectful to African Americans of today and the past.

As an African American male, when a white person says the n-word, I feel uncomfortable and disrespected.

Black people face mass incarceration threats, police brutality, constant judgment, continuous oppression. Caucasians cannot relate to that. They just can’t. Why are people so obsessed with identifying with a marginalized group of people, but not doing anything to help them? Why is saying the n-word so important to people who aren’t black and have never felt the struggles of African Americans?

Some may ask, “Is the prohibition of the word ‘nigga’ for non-blacks a violation of the first amendment?” The answer is yes because we live in the land of the free. Anybody is able to say whatever they want to.

However, non-Black Americans should be prepared to face the consequences of saying “nigga” just as Black Americans have had to face the consequences of being a “nigga.”