The N-Word Doesn't Belong to Everyone

“I could do what you do, believe me. N***** give me heebie-jeebies.” First of all, she didn’t even get the lyrics right. The correct line is, “I can do what you do, easy. Believe me, fronting n***** give me heebie-jeebies.” Ironically, Gina Rodriguez left out the “fronting” part when she uploaded a video of her singing the lyrics of The Fugees “Ready or Not.” It seems she made up for leaving “fronting” out by fronting being black and saying the “N-Word.” There has been a long and heated debate over the words “n***a,” “n****r,” “n****s,” etc. Who can say them? Or, maybe more urgently, who can’t say them? I can’t give a black and white answer to this, but I can speak on my experiences as a black man who grew up in the South. I have visited slave plantations, spoken with experts on black history, and experienced firsthand effects of racism in our society, and all of this leads me to say: if you are not black, you can not say, sing, text, yell, or rap the n-word. 

There are hundreds of articles explaining the direct offensiveness and blatant ignorance of white people saying n****. When it comes to the context of hip-hop and the “harmlessness of singing along,” I think Ta-Nehisi Coates summed it up best. His Mini Speech is a fantastic summation of the topic, and I would point you there for a great insight on the issue. The topic of white people not being allowed to say the word is well-published, I would point you here, here, and here for clarification on the history, context, and pain that the word has caused the black community in history. I want to focus on the taboo topic that is people of color feeling entitled to saying the word, despite not being black.

The rules around n-word usage lose their clarity when we start discussing members of the Latino, Asian, and Middle Eastern communities. It is irresponsible for us as a society to assume that all minorities have faced the same struggles, and it is blatantly ignorant for us to lump every minority struggle in with the struggles of African Americans. There are struggles that Asian, Latino, and Middle Eastern communities have faced that black people are not familiar with, and their experiences and pains are valid. That being said, none of those struggles have had a direct relationship to the N-word in a way that would ever give people of those communities claim to the word. The struggles of African Americans are so distinct, painful, and horrid that to put all of the different communities struggles in the same basket erases the distinct struggles of black people. The lack of specificity is key when it comes to the issue of non-black POC saying the word.

The main pushback to this that I have heard is that “we grew up the same way, the same neighborhoods, and on the same experiences.” While we may have grown up in the same place, and we might even identify with similar struggles, the slur has been, and still is used, to dehumanize the black community in a way that non-black POC haven’t experienced. There is a painful cut that the word has left that has been felt by generations of black people, and there is too much history there to be brushed aside. Black people have been murdered, enslaved, raped, experimented with, segregated, punished, sold, and dehumanized in the context of this word. There is no denying that, it is not debatable, and it is not up for interpretation; any disregard to this history is abhorrent and disrespectful. 

It comes down to respect. Non-black POC don’t have a spiritual or emotional connection to the word, thus they have no claim to it. You can claim to identify with the black community all you want, but at the end of the day, you are not black: simple as that. Because the term is not associated with you, it is not your word to use. I cannot wrap my head around the idea that there are over a million words in the English language, yet when black people ask other communities to not use one word, it’s an issue. Non-black people need to respect the wishes of the black community, and not use the word. It is genuinely so simple, if the word comes up in a song, don’t sing that part. If it comes up in conversation, refrain from using it. It costs you nothing to respect an entire community of people. That is why it is straight up disrespectful for non-black people to use the word. If you are not black, do not use the word. Ever. 

There seems to be a mythical N-word pass that is cited when I have asked non-black people to refrain from using the N-word. I don’t care what black friend gave you permission to say the slur, but I promise you that they do not speak for the entire black population. Citing this alleged “N-word pass” is treating your black friend as some sort of token. Not only is this disrespectful to them, but it shows a disregard to their experience as a black person navigating life.

You might ask yourself, “if the word is so bad, why do black people say it?” The topic of reclaiming the word is a topic that is debatable among black people. I can see the power in reclaiming a word that has been used to put your community down. I have spoken with a black coworker who put it beautifully. He said that for him, to be able to say the word n**** puts him back in control of his experience. He talked about his mother being raised in Georgia, and having to deal with the traps of racism in the 1900s. He said that him taking back the word takes back the oppressive power that the word could have against him. He’s taking his fate in his own hands and defying the history of oppression that surrounds the word. That being said, I see the validity in black people who prefer that the term be eradicated entirely. That wound might still be too fresh. I am not one to sit here and tell black people how to live their black experience. However, regardless of whether a black person feels comfortable saying the word, that is separate from the conversation around non-POC saying the term. Whether a black person says the word themselves or not, it’s not an invitation for you to say it. 

Does Gina Rodriguez singing the word on her instagram story make her a racist? No. Does it make her disrespectful? Yes. It is hard to have any respect for a person who would blatantly disrespect the black community by nonchalantly singing the song on her story. If it’s truly one of “her favorite songs” as she claimed, then she is welcome to upload a section of the song sans the slur. The little amount of effort that is required to respect the black community is a standard that we should hold every member of society to. If you are not black, do not say the N-word. 

Cover Photo Credit @GinaRodriguez on Instagram