Nigga Nigga Nigga

Last weekend, the NFL announced that it will attempt to censor use of the word nigger on the field at its games. John Wooten, head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, told CBS Sports that he expects the league to make it an automatic 15-yard penalty if a player says nigger on the field, and an automatic ejection for a player who does it twice. Putting aside the logistical nightmare that would come with enforcing such a ridiculous rule, we should ask ourselves what is the NFL’s motivation behind attempting to implement such a rule?

Over the last four seasons the public has become privy to the inner workings of an NFL locker room, and it has not been a pleasant introduction.  In 2012 there was the bountygate scandal involving the New Orleans Saints organization. Then, last season, the Miami Dolphins were entrenched in a scandal involving claims of excessive bullying and harassment of a player and trainers including taunting using numerous racial and sexual epithets.  And next season the NFL will most likely field its first openly gay player in Michael Sam.  So it is in the best interest of the league to at least make an attempt to protect its players and staff from a hostile work environment.  

The N-Word is a different story though.  It has become the preferred familiar pronoun for young African-American men. It is used as frequently as white people use the word “dude”, usually with no difference in meaning.  It is common vernacular not only on NFL fields but in Black society at large. But more importantly, it is OUR word.  It is one thing that Black people have in America that White people have not been able to appropriate.  Some have said that attempts to ban the word are an underhanded way of White America saying “If I can’t have it, neither can you”.

Personally, I like the term “Negro”.  It sounds powerful to me.  The ending “gro” helps to convey a sense of improvement and advancement. One’s head instinctively raises up when they say the word. (Try it: Negro.). What other term describes the descendants of North American slaves?  We are no longer Africans.  That ship sailed a long time ago, with us on it.  And to say we are Black fails to make a distinction between us and our cousins in other Western nations who, while victims of forced diaspora, never were treated as abdly as American Blacks.  Neither have those other nations’ Black populations gone on to become one of the strongest, most resourceful, and honestly, the most envied and imitated groups in the history of the world. American Negroes are pioneers in music, fashion, sports, business. We should have the right to refer to ourselves by any name we choose, and also to deny those who separated us from our ancestral homeland, culture, and language the right to use it.  

But regardless of what we call ourselves, the crimes of the past are still with us.  Softer terms like Black or ennobling terms like African-American have served to separate us from that past. Most of us were all too happy to forget, as if we are not Medgar Evers and our children are not George Stinney.  But we are. That damage will always be there, no matter how many times you change your name.  A rose by any other name is still a rose.  And if you have dark skin in America, and your ancestors were slaves, then YOU are a NIGGER, Nigga.