1,187 words / 8:25

Only one word in the English language can get you killed if you say it — or, in many cases, merely if your murderer claims you said it.

In his essay “Why The N-Word Is Not Just Another Word,” black writer H. Lewis Smith attempts to explain why this word has acquired its verboten status:

Hitler, Attila the Hun, [and] Ivan the Terrible look like mere Boy Scouts compared to what went on here in man’s effort to conquer and control, [sic] the minds, souls and hearts of another race of people. All that went down during this era stunk so bad its [sic] a wonder the stench wasn’t smelt [sic] as far away as planet Jupiter.

Preach, brother. Sorry — I meant to say “brotha.” The distinction is apparently important. When dealing with anything regarding the N-word and the people to whom it refers, it’s considered especially sinful to pronounce the hard “r.”

Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one below or click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link/target as.”

In the dearly departed O. J. Simpson’s murder trial, black prosecuting attorney Christopher Darden — who couldn’t bring himself to say the word — called it “the filthiest, nastiest, dirtiest word in the English language.”

There is no word that is filthier, nastier, or dirtier. And, like those three words, the word ends with a hard “r.”

Much has been made of the fact that black Americans have proudly “reclaimed” this word. In his 1912 novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, James Weldon Johnson noticed how blacks used the word “as a term of almost endearment”:

I noticed that among this class of colored men the word “nigger” was freely used in about the same sense as the word “fellow,” and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men.

But in the process of reclaiming the word, blacks also repronounced it. And among those blacks who are at least literate enough to write the word, they have almost universally respelled it.

I refer to the perceived differences between “nigger” and “nigga.” Some would say it’s a distinction without a difference.

In phonics, people with “rhotic” (ROW-tick) accents pronounce the hard “r” at the end of a word. Most Americans — except New Englanders and, for some reason still unknown to me, black Americans — pronounce the hard “r.” The Wikipedia page on “Rhoticity in English” contains two sound files — one in which an American speaker pronounces “farmer” with the hard “r” and a British speaker enunciates it so it sounds more like “pharma.”

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary uses a black man’s voice to pronounce the non-rhotic “nigga,” but a white woman’s voice for the rhotic “nigger.” It should be noted that basketball fans in China use the word’s rhotic form.

Chinese basketball fans yell N-word to black players!!

Which brings us all to a dilemma: Is it worse to say or write the absolute worst word in the world if you pronounce and spell it with the hard “r”? Verily, I say it is the existential, moral, and linguistic question of our time.

To the best of my ability to untangle this searingly important question, it’s probably considered worse with the hard “r” merely because that’s how most white people say it, so black people associate the hard “r” with hateful usage and the non-rhotic variant “nigga” with the more affectionate, brotha-on-brotha usage. The only time I can recall a black person using the hard “r” was during comedian Dave Chappelle’s portrayal of a blind white supremacist who didn’t realize he was black.

Clayton Bigsby, the World’s Only Black White Supremacist – Chappelle’s Show

But in the course of reclaiming, repronouncing, and respelling the word, black Americans have defiantly declared that white people are not permitted to use either version. Or, as the now-dead-from-AIDS oracle Eazy-E of rap group Niggaz wit’ Attitudez declared on the song “Niggaz4Life”:

Niggaz say “nigga” we cool but, crackas say “nigga,” nigga nut the fuck up.

In layman’s terms, this translates to, “We blacks are encouraged to call each other ‘nigga’ in acts of fellowship, but if a white person says the word, we’ll go crazy and kill them.”

Tupac Shakur is another dead black rapper. Unlike Eazy-E, who was brought down by little gay microbes, Tupac was felled by bullets presumably shot by other niggas. His song “N.I.G.G.A.” repurposes the word as an acronym meaning “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.” In his posthumously published and partially ghostwritten autobiography, he draws the distinction between servile “niggers” and proud “niggas”:

Niggers was the ones on the rope, hanging off the thing; niggas is the ones with gold ropes, hanging out at clubs.

Wikipedia’s entry on “nigga” says that in 1995, a pair of Tupac Shakur’s co-niggas wrangled a different acronym out of the word:

In 1995, two men from Houston filed a trademark application with the PTO [Patent and Trademark Office] for the words “Naturally Intelligent God Gifted Africans”, and its acronym. The application was rejected, as were numerous subsequent applications for variations of the word nigga. In 2005, comedian Damon Wayans twice attempted to trademark a brand name called Nigga, “featuring clothing, books, music and general merchandise”. The PTO refused Wayans’ application, stating “the very fact that debate is ongoing regarding in-[ethnic]-group usage, shows that a substantial composite of African-Americans find the term ‘nigga’ to be offensive”.

In a recent black-on-white mob beating at a Connecticut park that someone in the crowd was thoughtful enough to film and post online, it’s unclear what precipitated the attack, but during a brief respite after the white female victim is viciously pummeled and dragged down a hill, she can be heard at the 27-second mark asking, “Are you gonna hit me again, nigga?” She was at least courteous enough to omit the hard “r.” But once that word slips out of her mouth, they resume hitting her — and much harder.

So, hard “r” or no hard “r,” you’re in for a hard beating if you’re white and use this word.

This all leads me to wonder whether a white person has ever been beaten or murdered for merely saying the infantile phrase “the N-word” in a black person’s presence as part of a fumbling attempt not to offend. I don’t mean whether they said “nigger” or “nigga”; I’m wondering whether a well-meaning white person was shot dead for merely conjuring the word by saying, “Rest assured, Tardavious, that I’m not the type of person who has ever said the N-word.”

As if dislodging a long-dormant cerebral blood clot, this entire topic has also dredged from my memory the time about six years ago here in suburban Atlanta when, during a face-to-face traffic dispute, a black person called me “nigga.” I was momentarily flustered and disarmed, because how was I to know whether he was using it as a pejorative or as a term of endearment? How would he have interpreted it if I called him a “nigga” in return?

These N-words are so confusing, they may be smarter than I’d ever dreamed possible.