The N word.

[Sinister Intents]

I cannot stand when people defend its use, when they do this they're upholding their privilege and ignoring history. I've also heard people argue that it's meaning and connotation are completely different. It's a pejorative insult and its meaning abd use are exactly the same in my eyes.

Thoughts, additions, corrections, and so on?

[RedWorker]

"Foolish and vain indeed is the workingman who makes the color of his skin the stepping-stone to his imaginary superiority. The trouble is with his head, and if he can get that right he will find that what ails him is not superiority but inferiority, and that he, as well as the Negro he despises, is the victim of wage-slavery, which robs him of what he produces and keeps both him and the Negro tied down to the dead level of ignorance and degradation. [...] The man who seeks to arouse prejudice among workingmen is not their friend. He who advises the white wage-worker to look down upon the black wage-worker is the enemy of both." - Eugene V. Debs

[Sabot Cat]

"Foolish and vain indeed is the workingman who makes the color of his skin the stepping-stone to his imaginary superiority. The trouble is with his head, and if he can get that right he will find that what ails him is not superiority but inferiority, and that he, as well as the Negro he despises, is the victim of wage-slavery, which robs him of what he produces and keeps both him and the Negro tied down to the dead level of ignorance and degradation. [...] The man who seeks to arouse prejudice among workingmen is not their friend. He who advises the white wage-worker to look down upon the black wage-worker is the enemy of both." - Eugene V. Debs

This is rather insightful. If you ever read white nationalist trash for whatever reason, it'll be like:

"There's an elite few making life worse for almost everyone..."

Yees...?

"The banks, the media, the government, are all exploitative instruments of their ill-gotten power"

Yeeees?

"The Jews-"

Dammit, you were so close!

[Comrade Hadrian]

I cannot stand when people defend its use, when they do this they're upholding their privilege and ignoring history. I've also heard people argue that it's meaning and connotation are completely different. It's a pejorative insult and its meaning abd use are exactly the same in my eyes.

Thoughts, additions, corrections, and so on?

I'm reminded of the one of the early episodes of The Boondocks, after Uncle Ruckus sings the song "Don't trust them new niggas over there." One of the rich people standing around says something like "I think it's okay for them to say it." As in, the rich Euro-settlers culturally know to distinguish themselves from those poorer Euro-settlers who fling the term around too freely.

I sometimes even get the vague impression when hearing the word it is meant to take down the "white" man a notch, by his own fellow "white" man. It's as if the settler using the term wants to bring you down on his/her level, on to this bestial level, where you're supposed to bond out of some imaginary sense of shared superiority over the "niggers." The modern settler imagination of the "nigger" is always some sort of stealing, sexually aggressive, violent thug that isn't too bright. It's like the settler using the term can't even imagine the biggest mass-murdering, lying, raping, thieving moron to ever exist has always been the "white" man, and the settler wants to pull you into this fantasy where, where black is evil and white is good, when any assessment of reality by the same metrics would suggest the opposite is actually the case.

I also often tend to think any word that ends in "er" has to mean someone who performs a corresponding verb. To be a settl"er" is someone who "settles" somewhere. So I think to myself "What is a nigg"er"? Someone who "nigs?"' Beyond slang usage, it doesn't mean anything to "nig." "Nigger" is really just a corruption of "negro," which isn't exactly a pejorative, but I still can't help but think "nigger" doesn't really mean anything at all. Unlike settler, which clearly descries some real behaviour of a group of people.

[Sinister Intents]

I've heard a few different origins of the word, one from the country of Niger/Nigeria, one saying a specific tribe, and the other from thr spanish negro. What's the exact origin?

What of people claiming the "blacks" started the slave trade? I can't stand that assertion

[PhoenixAsh]

It comes from Latin where Niger means black.

Otherwise....here is a wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger#Etymology_and_history

It does not derive from Nigeria at all since that country was only named such in the late 19th century. I did a paper on it in high school. Nigeria got its name from the river...which was called Egerwe Nigerewe..(or something to that effect...)

[Redistribute the Rep]

What of people claiming the "blacks" started the slave trade? I can't stand that assertion

Well, the slave trade was well established by 1500 when the Europeans arrived. Also, African kings in many cases played a role in the capture of slaves to sell or sold prisoners of war, etc. And then by some incredibly convoluted logic, this makes it okay for whites to use the N word :confused:. These types of comments, while technically true, are taken out of context and often used to downplay the racism that minorities face and shift the focus to the poor white people who are being accused of racism (the horror). Another common one : "the Irish were discriminated against to, you know"