WASHINGTON ― There is an ongoing debate around words used pejoratively to refer to different groups of people. Who gets to use words like “nigga” (or “nigger”) or “Redskin”? Moreover, who gets to serve as the arbiter in deciding who gets to use them? Are the words okay if used by members of the communities they were created to define? Is it ever okay for those outside of the community to use them? Is there some level of “downness” one can exhibit to get a pass?
These were questions weighed by panelists and participants for seven hours in a filled-to-capacity room Tuesday at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE).
“When you’re talking about … prohibited words … it is all about power and/or access,” said writer and activist Gyasi Ross, who also serves as editor-at-large of Indian Country Today. Appropriate use of the words, he said, is “determined largely by context, who’s saying it, how they’re saying it, the imagery (associated with saying it), how much they know about the history.”
For many in the room, there was in-fighting about whether the words should be packed away with the painful histories out of which they were wrought, or if they should be claimed and owned by those they were intended to oppress.
For Ross, like many in the room, the latter held true.
“As people of color, we have to feel comfortable owning these histories and keeping these histories internal and sacred,” he said. “Because our ancestors survived that history and had faithfulness to survive that history.”
To Ross, the words belong to the people they describe — and only those people.
