The N-word

So I am trying to reconcile my use of the word nigger. Being a black woman and having been referred to as a "nigger," I feel as though it is a word that I am able to use. I use it because it takes some of the sting out of it. I am not offended if another black person--not person of color--but another black person uses it. Why? I guess because we share the history and the legacy of racism and oppression. When it conmes to the oppression that whites encounter and the oppression that blacks encounter, I can say in the words of the Negro spiritual and the most Bebe Moore Campbell's most recent iteration, "your blues ain't like mine." i in no way mean to assert that my oppression is worse or better than another person's oppression. Oppression is oppression--if you fight for the equality of one, you must fight for the liberation and equality of all. If just one person or one group of people is being oppressed, then all are oppressed. But this does not get at my choice to use the word nigger.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures are worth lives, emotions, tears, anguish, oppression, marginalization, and death. These photographs serve as part of the legacy of not only black people in the United States, but white people. In these photos, white people seem to have enjoyed watching the life being drained out of the intended lynchee. Black people have lived with not only oppression, but fear. Fear of life and death, fear for the world that we will leave out children, fear that things won't get any better than what they are. So, the use of "nigger" encompasses all of that and the joy of reclamation. Things progress and move on. Ideas and themes are picked up and made over. The history of the use of this word is contentious. However, I have made the choice to distinguish between nigger and nigga. Nigga is the new iteration of nigger. It is the reclamation of the word nigger. For me, I believe that it stands to claim my birthright--taking the symbols and signification of what it means to be black and using that to empower me. But I don't understand why it is such a big deal as to who uses the word.

When it comes to the use of nigger or nigga, white people shouldn't use it--at all ever. Why? I counter with my own question: why would a white person want to use nigger or nigga? Look at these pictures, really look at them. Are white people at a place where they can separate themselves from the cultural legacy surrounding their use of this word? What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander. Are whites speaking from a place of privilege in even wanting to use the word?

I still have some thinking to do around the use of the "n-word." However, based upon the culture of oppression and white privilege, I will never, ever sanction white people's use of this word