When, if ever, should white people use the N-word?

Posted October 3rd, 2012 by James DeWolf Perry
Category: Living consequences Tags: N-word, Racial discrimination

Hip-hop artist Head-Roc has written a provocative essay in the Huffington Post about the use of the N-word by white people, entitled, “When the N-word Strikes in Chocolate City.”

In the essay, Head-Roc writes about being at a party and meeting a white guest who casually referred to him with the N-word. Interestingly, Head-Roc doesn’t assume this white person is bigoted, or reflects a white subculture where such language is still considered appropriate in casual conversation. Instead, he sees something very different in his fellow party-goer:

He is the progressive white guy at the parties who thinks he is so down and in tune with every aspect of the black experience in America to the point where he thinks he can comfortably say and use the word “nigger” in a black person’s presence.

Head-Roc takes the position that no white person should ever use the N-word in casual conversation, because he or she “did not share the history of black people having to endure centuries of persecution, with the word ‘nigger’ being an enforcing agent of unspeakable torture.”

Many people, of course, readily agree with this (and, in fact, discussions of the N-word often turn on whether it should ever be used by a white person, even in serious discussions of the word itself).

But Head-Roc doesn’t discuss the possibility that this white party-goer may not have decided to use the word by himself. For quite some time, there have been younger, racially-mixed groups where the use of the N-word is acceptable and even encouraged by those who are black.

What do YOU think? Does it matter what this white person’s black friends think? Should the N-word be stricken from white vocabularies? From anyone’s vocabulary? Should it be a matter of choice, and if so, whose? Please feel free to comment below.