It’s one of the most contentious words in America. Who can use? Who can’t? Should its meaning change when used by different people? It’s considered a curse word by a large segment of the United States and is prohibited from our major media and entertainment outlets–except for hip hop. Geoff Harkness explores this issue in his article “Hip Hop Culture and America’s Most Taboo Word” (Contexts, Fall 2008). We’ve put together some ways to use this article in your class on race, music, or popular culture:
- Listen to this NPR interview with hip-hop icon KRS-ONE and comedy legend Paul Mooney (either in class or have students listen to it at home).
- Have students form small groups and discuss, based on what they read in this article, whether they think the “n-word” should be acceptable for anyone to use and if so, who should be able to use and who shouldn’t?
- Use these questions to start a class discussion:
1) What social factors and cultural ties help explain the bonds Latino and black hip-hoppers express in this article?
2) As its music and culture has become more mainstream and moved across class and racial boundaries, how has hip-hop changed?
3) Like the “n-word”, groups sometimes “reclaim” words that are used as slurs to turn them into points of pride. Discuss the history and evolution of words like “ghetto,” “redneck,” “queer,” “faggot,” and “bitch.” Why have people sometimes chosen to reclaim derogatory words like these?
4) Some words are loaded even if they seem neutral. Consider words like “feminist,” “patriot,” “communist.” What meanings and implications are built into these words? Can you think of similar words that evoke strong feelings?
Comments 5
3565 — December 2, 2010
Just as food for thought though, with regards to the post:
1) Should folks who are not even comfortable saying a word (e.g. the "N word", evidenced above) really be the ones who are teaching about its uses? More so, should we be asking our students to critically deconstruct a word that we as teachers don't even feel comfortable saying? This strikes me as pedagogically misguided in the first instance, and horribly unfair in the second.
2) If we sanitize one slur and not another, aren't we are implicitly creating a hierarchy of suffering for our students? I think that, in effect, we are telling our students who have been called "faggot" that their pain isn't as meaningful, powerful, or salient as our black students who are spared the recitation of their slur in our classroom. Alternately, we might be implying that our black-identifying students are less capable of differentiating the context of use than our other students who are forced to sit through continued use and deconstruction of the slurs that are used to silence them.
3) Is it worth considering that our black-identifying students don't give a crap about when non-black-identifying students think it's appropriate or not appropriate to say "nigger", our LGBTQ students don't give a crap about when our straight- identifying thinks it's appropriate or not to use the word "faggot", and our female-identifying students don't give a crap when our male students think it's appropriate or not to use the word "bitch." Instead, these words and the recitation of them is just painful, and as such, perhaps a LGBTQ person doesn't want to sit through a discussion of "faggot" for all the straight students' benefit. Of course, an LGBTQ student could feel the exact opposite way, but it's presumptuous of us to assume how they will feel or force them into feeling any way at all for other students' benefit.
4) Finally, a two-part question:
a)What is the goal of this lesson? It goes unstated.
b)If we can clarify what the goal of this lesson is, are there other ways to accomplish this goal without encountering the problems listed above?
Just as a point of clarification, I'm certainly not trying to personally attack Kia or Holly, and I thank both of them for the post. I think it opens up an excellent discussion.
Kia Heise — December 2, 2010
Thank you for your comment! I think you bring up some excellent points for instructors to think about. Most notably, the ethical dilemmas around focusing our lessons on educating our majority students at the possible expense of our minority students. I think your comment opens a good discussion, and I hope others get involved.
T — December 3, 2010
As for the reclaiming of the words, it's a defense mechanism. When being called these hateful words, some people eventually pick up the words, and accept it.
By saying "yeah I'm faggot" "Yeah, I'm a bitch" "Yeah, I'm a red neck" "Yeah, I'm a dick," the impact of the insult or the slur is lessened to a point of not worth mentioning and the actually bully moves on.
sociologyforall — December 3, 2010
I’ve actually used this Hip Hop article before with great feedback from students. But I would establish some ground rules before bringing up the sensitive topic. I say this because if you have racists in your class you might not allow them to use your classroom to be used for spreading hate. Hence, the best way we might go forward with this is to explain to students how the N-word became a negative classification and racialized concept. So what do I recommend doing for instructors who have never done something like this before? About three semester ago I started assigning a anonymous one-page write-up instead of doing a heated debate on the subject. I ask them to respond to this simple question: What should happen to the N-Word? Since many people will often shield themselves from public scrutiny this could be another way to squeeze the true feelings and emotions out of them.
azizi — December 6, 2010
I cosign what 3565 wrote.
As to what T wrote, talk about blaming the victim. I know that there are some Black folks who believe in sanitizing the "n word". But I'm definitely not one of them.
I don't think there's enough bleach in the world to sanitize that hate full word. I don't believe in sanitizing that word. I believe in burying it.
Seeing the "n word" fully spelled out and/or hearing it (no matter the race or ethnicity of the person using it) makes me cringe. Don't tell me to get over it. It's not just the word. It's what it stands for-and I don't think that it's worth it to try to gloss over that history & present day hatred.
I think raising topics like these are land mines. And most people-regardless of their race/ethnicity-don't know how to handle land mines.
If professors feel like they have to raise these topics, then the idea that sociologyforall shared of having students write a one page anonymous paper is better than introducing a free for all (no pun intended) discussion. Yet, I bet some maschoistic professors who think they have a clue what they are talking about but probably don't won't resist the temptation to hold forth on this topic. As to the idea of making sure there are no racist in the classroom before introducing that topic-sure that'll work (snark). That presumes that people know what being racist means & also presupposes that racism is just personal acts & attitudes-which it's not.
So good luck with this idea. And I pray for any Students of Color and I pray for members of any other targeted population who have to be guinea pigs for "liberal" instructors.