THE "N-WORD": WHAT’S IN A NAME, BLACK AMERICA?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 1, 2011

CONTACT:
United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc.
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310-712-2662

THE "N-WORD": WHAT’S IN A NAME, BLACK AMERICA?

By H. Lewis Smith

Nationwide (BlackNews.com) — Whenever the "massa" gave the enslaved black man something, no matter what it was, he took it – whether voluntarily or by coercion. Sadly, no matter how demeaning or dreadful the thing may have been, he had no choice but to accept the token, allowing it to become a part of his identity. For instance, the black man was given the name ‘N**ger’ by the massa. When asked: "What is your name?" He responded: "N**ger". "What? Say it loud so they all can hear you, what is your name?" "N**ger!!!" was the replied. And yet again he was asked, and he replied: "I am a N**GER." Finally, the white man said, "Right!! That’s a good n**ger. Never ever forget – who and what you are – and your proper place."

Today, as opposed to being ruthlessly, physically and emotionally beaten into submission and acceptance of the n-word by a brutal white social system, black people find themselves courted and conned by other blacks to voluntarily remain in their pre-appointed place of a n**ger/n**ga. In this contemporary era, White supremacy is most effective when it uses a black voice as a ventriloquist, and today, many rappers, comedians and black scholars validate the premise.

It is incredulous and appalling how some black scholars encourage their college students to greet each other as n**gas. An uninterrupted indoctrination process that began almost 400 years ago by a brutal racist social system is now carried on by cloned black representatives. The definition of self is only limited by who that person thinks they are, and far too many black scholars – who are, by definition of their roles, leaders and influencers in the community – have a diminished image of themselves and their race.

The American institutionalized systemic has always identified Black America with the n-word and, therefore, finds Black Americans’ willingness to accept and relate to their pre-appointed place and category of being a n**ger/n**ga both gratifying and an ease on their guilty conscience.

So long as black people restrict themselves to saggin’ pants, referring to one another as n**ger/n**ga, b*tches, mf’s; and limiting their thinking to sex, cars, drugs, guns, sports and life in the hood, all is well in the American institutionalized systemic. However, a far more challenging and graver concern to the systemic are Black Americans retaking control of their minds, demonstrating the ability to think and act rationally, and possessing demeanors of royalty – walking with dignity; that who boldly declare their independence and rightfully return any unfitting or cursed gifts to the systemic – one primarily is being the n-word.

Black historians and scholars such as Dr. Asa Hilliard, Dr. John Henri Clarke, Dr. Chancellor Williams, Dr. Richard Williams, Kimani Nehusi, Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn, Dr. Ray Higgins, Dr. David Pilgrim and a few others serve as examples of liberated, independent thinkers. As such, the American institutionalized systemic refrains from parading these gentlemen before a sound-asleep Black community in fear that the knowledge of these thinkers may awaken the slumbering masses.

However, they will parade and promote the likes of a Dr. David Bradley, Dr. Randall Kennedy, certain rappers, black comedians and some other hand-picked high profile blacks – all of whom are proponents of the n-word – before an unsuspecting and sleeping Black community. The systemic will and does make every effort to keep the sycophants – n-word supporting blacks – constantly before the public to trick blacks into remaining blinded to the truth even though they believe they are in control of their thoughts and aware of what’s occurring.

The ravages of centuries of brutal mistreatment at the hands of whites through slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and lynch mobs still have a powerful psychological effect on black people to this very day. The intent and purpose of being categorized as the n-word was far more sinister than just a mundane racial insult.

The term was used as an identifier and a method of separating blacks from the remainder of the populous; it was used as a psychological conduit to breed thoughts of inferiority and, thus, no self-dignity, -pride, or –respect. The definition of a n**ger/n**ga painted blacks as sub-human, 3/5 a person, a bestial savage beast who needed to be tamed. The term was white America’s way of not accepting blacks as their equal – but as a burden. And because blacks were considered non-human, and instead, animalistic, Whites believed that in the eyesight of God, classifying black ancestors as n**gers made it okay to dehumanize, brutalize and subject them to anything and everything ungodly.

The Holy Bible was interpreted in many self-justifiable ways to support White America’s idea that blacks were a cursed race and that it was God’s word that instructed them to "cleanse the world of impurities" by enslaving and dehumanizing them. They found it necessary to browbeat, brainwash and indoctrinate the black slaves into believing that they were indeed n**gers, and that whatever harm came to them was an act of God because they were nothing more than n**gers.

N**ger is an inferior category and place, reserved for those black folks who are gullible enough to accept the term. During slavery, our ancestors had no choice but to accept such categorization; today, their descendants have a choice but are timid about leaving their comfort zone, their pre-appointed place of being n**gers. So, what do they do? They dupe themselves into accepting the ghetto vernacular n**ga as some BS term of endearment. That action in itself basically safeguards White America’s plight of destruction against the black community at the black community’s own hand.

The embracing of the n-word serves as a sanctioning of all the evil deeds committed upon Black African Americans’ beloved ancestry. This is not a consensus or opinion but a fact. Deliberate or not, it is sanctioning nonetheless. Such actions are neither magnanimous nor altruistic but indeed the opposite – malevolent, mean-spirited, self-centered and narrow-minded. Black ancestors deserve better – in the perspective of reverence and honor of their sacred and hallow memories. The n-word should be taboo and forbidden to be a part of the Black African-American culture.

There is nothing empowering about embracing the n-word; it has no benefit or value. Continually holding on to the name given blacks by a racist society through using, defending and supporting the use of the word, as well as trying to rationalize that it has been changed into something positive, is sheer insanity.

N**ga/n**ger is an empty sign of self-hatred masquerading itself as a term of endearment. The idiom serves as perpetual imprisonment and is the detonator to the absolute extermination of an entire race of people’s pride, dignity, honor and state of mind. Some may feel that the term carries no weight and plays no role in the current status and eventual outcome of the black community.

However, the name "N**ga/n**ger" was always meant to demean and destruct. And as blacks continue to use the term, the community’s ill-development will continue to occur. Words are a mighty source of power (Proverbs 23:7), and there is power – a negative, evil, conniving power – in the name "N**ga/n**ger".

H. Lewis Smith is the founder and president of UVCC, the United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc. (www.theunitedvoices.com); a writer for the New England Informer Online; and author of "Bury that Sucka: A Scandalous Love Affair with the N-Word". Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/thescoop1

THE ENIGMATIC N-WORD by H. Lewis Smith

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 17, 2010

CONTACT:
T. Sherriel Weithers
(310) 712-2662
admin@theunitedvoices.com
www.theunitedvoices.com

THE ENIGMATIC N-WORD

By H. Lewis Smith

Even though not all black Americans refer to themselves as the pejorative n-word, an alarming proportion of the Black community uses and/or supports use of the term. For instance, ministers invoke the word from their pulpits, and the NAACP, with the wink of the eye, looks the other way when prominent blacks publicly embrace the word. Many black college professors support their students’ use of the word. Minister Louis Farrakhan has glowingly utilized the word in some of his speeches. It’s liberally promoted in mainstream media, such as in the music of rappers and television shows like The Boondocks. In grassroots black America, many are simply so consumed by the word, that they’re unable to survive a 48-hour period without using the term.

In addition, proponents of the n-word offer a myriad of excuses as to why they self-internalize the word. Some of the "justifications" allude to the idea that black users of the word are taking the sting out of the term by using it, as well as they are changing the meaning of the idiom by using it endearingly and changing the suffix on the word from "er" to "a". So what does this all mean one may ask; to black Americans who refuse to succumb to the use and acceptance of the disparaging term, what is supposed to be the problem with the n-word?

To be candid, blacks who refrain from the use of the word are NOT in denial of a 300-year-African American Holocaust. Acknowledging the sinister history of the n-word is not giving power to the word as some claim. However, accepting use of the word does subliminally give it power; even though one doesn’t realize it at the surface level, when one is referred to as a "n**ga", all of the memories of contempt, negativity and inferiority courses through one’s veins and mental. Just think about it: For almost four centuries some very heinous and terrible atrocities occurred to Black Americans’ beloved ancestors in the name of the n-word. It was a term of exclusion, verbal justification for inhumane acts, including slaughtering, butchering, brutal rapes, death and terrorizing.

To embrace and or accept n**ga as a term of endearment that individual is either in a continued state of denial or the word has subconsciously over-powered and brainwashed that individual into his/her "place". Either way, the progress and rejuvenation of the black community is stagnant, and the demise continues.

Each time we call one another n**ga or n**ger as terms of so-called endearment, the memories and spirits of the black forefathers are desecrated and dishonored. Duty is calling and the time is now for ALL blacks to bestow upon ancestors a better and more dignified place in the black race’s collective memory than any individual money-hungry rapper, self-centered comedian, or blind revisionist has accorded them to date.

The history of the word n**ger cannot and should not be overlooked. The word is so stigmatized that to attempt to redefine it would suggest that an African-American Holocaust never took place. But the fact is the event did occur. Certainly words change and evolve, and though it can easily be argued that context can change words, the original purpose/intent of the word and its place in history cannot change.

The term acts as an unrelenting daily assault on the Black psyche designed to corrupt Black Americans’ sense of racial unity and cohesion. It molds the character of self-hatred, engenders self-doubt, self-loathing, and distrust among the group, thus, pulverizing Black unity and halting Black upward mobility.

There is an 18th century mentality associated with the term: An old woman, an escape slave, in a conversation with a missionary was quoted as saying: "We are n**gers. We always was n**gers and we always shall be. We’ve got no souls. We’s animals. We’s black and so is the Evil One."

The Bible doesn’t say the devil is black, protested the missionary. "Well," the old woman said, "white folks say so and we’s bound to believe them, cause we’s nothing but animals and n**gers. Yes, we’s n**gers! N**gers! N**gers!"

This 18th century mentality is alive and well throughout the 21st century black community. To be succinct, the true and ONLY reason blacks refer to themselves as the n-word is because white folks said to do so…where else did the programming, conditioning and the word n**ger originate?

The word n**ger is as much a part of American history as slavery, the Civil War, and the Boston Tea Party, and it would be naivety to assume that it can be made to disappear. It is just as naïve to assume that the term’s satanical history is some sort of illusion, however, the word can be made to vanish, banned, abolished from the speech of all Black Americans as it should be. Thinking like helpless and hopeless victims, users of the word see a task such as eradicating the use of the word from their vocabulary as impossible. Such an attitude is unlike that of the 60s when the indomitable spirit of Black America rejected the terms of Negro and Colored choosing instead to adopt the terms of Black and African American.

They chose to define themselves as opposed to being defined. Just as that spirit of determination and striving toward self-respect and progress reigned throughout the ‘60′s, blacks of today can infuse that same spirit into defining themselves in a positive light rather than being defined by some past idea of inferiority. It is time to leave all remnants of the past in the past, and move forward with a clear head and [self-definition] founded on personal integrity, cultural and individual respect.

H. Lewis Smith is the founder and president of UVCC, the United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc. www.theunitedvoices.com, a writer for the New England Informer Online; and author of "Bury that Sucka: A Scandalous Love Affair with the N-Word". Follow H. Lewis Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thescoop1