Nigger. If
reading, hearing, or saying this just now forced you to pause and to think,
then you should already understand the answer to the question of whether the
“N” word should be used at leisure. The “N” word was not designed for leisure
folic. Its use was and still is inherently contextual to deprivation and
oppression. The use of it is unmistakably derogative.

The question of
using the “N” word calls to mind an article I once read which “explained” why
rappers say it so freely. In that article, one black man concluded that it is a
reminder of where “we” come from. I find this amusing because researchers
mostly agree the word itself can be traced to the latin word niger meaning
black. From this, its evolution continued until it reached a modern English
interpretation - where slave holders surely used the “N” word to remind slaves
who they were, and after the forceful abolishment of slavery it still served as
a reminder of who blacks were.

Sound familiar? A
reminder. The word nigger is not a prideful acknowledgement of where we come
from. It is instead an endorsement of livelihood which would make the
slaveholders proud. For a black man or a white man to call anyone the “N” word
shows the negative affect that slavery and that type of oppression had. Its
free use proves the Willie Lynch theory: “How
to Make a Slave” because it doesn’t matter how many years freedom has
humanely belonged to black Americans, we inherently choose to stay in the
solitude-nous mindset of the old nigger slave.

The leisurely use
of the “N” word creates an atmosphere of isolation and is almost an
establishment of belonging. Even now, to say the word nigger to you brings
forth a portrait of a raggedy old apartment building on a street corner where the
first floor is occupied by a whore, on the second floor lives a drug dealer,
and the third floor a single mother with the baby that cries all night. All
three tenants are black. All three tenants are niggers. These images are the
stereotypes brought forth when nigger is used in lyrics, on thee street, even
between friends. It has negative connotation of only black people which has
been singed into the minds of all American ethnicities, and it is a word that
calls for shame on us all, both the decedents of slaveholders and the recipients
of such a word, the slaves.

Even if saying the
“N” word did positively reinforce the heritage of black people. Should it not
be reserved for appropriate instances? To use the “N” word so closely to
language as debasing as that which is found in current day rap lyrics only
deprecate its “rich” heritage. The “N” word then is conclusively demeaning,
distasteful, and a word of shame and therefore should never be used in leisure
rhetoric.

Nigger: a black person or of a
black origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.

According to www.dictionary.com