Talk:Nigger

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Text and/or other creative content from this version of Nigger was copied or moved into Use of nigger in the arts with this edit on 23:10, June 19, 2019. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

N-word should redirect to the slang term.

Popular consensus is the n-word is typically referring to the slang word rather than the slur. Coronaverification (talk) 07:19, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are they not literally one in the same? UnbearableIsBad (talk) 22:33, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If by "slang word" you're referring to the colloquialism "nigga", then you are incorrect: "N-word" refers to the slur, not the colloquialism. Thanks and happy editing.Chillowack (talk) 22:26, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance for Wikipedia editors

I arrived here after finding the full N-word quoted in another article. My personal understanding is that it would be more appropriate to euphemize as "N-word", or replace in a direct quote as "[N-word]" when it appears in article content. To anchor my opinion in the article itself, the section "In an academic setting" illustrates a close analogue to the Wikipedia context, in which 80% of a class on hate speech unenrolled after hearing the lecturer use the word. I'm sure context was relevant in that case, but it's relevant here as well: nobody is paying attention to the article's authors using the word in an intra- or inter-group sense, they simply know that it's disgusting to come across egregious usages. Is there already a discussion thread about recommended writing style (and moving this article to "N-word" with a redirect back to it, for that matter)? Adamw (talk) 14:55, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't do euphemisms. Or alter direct quotes. Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 20:33, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quotation source

Hairy Dude (talk · contribs) quite rightly added the {{attribution needed}} tag to the text:

Because the word nigger has historically "wreaked symbolic violence, often accompanied by physical violence"...

The quoted material appears to originate in the article:

Rahman, Jacquelyn (June 2012). "The N Word: Its History and Use in the African American Community". Journal of English Linguistics. 40 (2): 137–171. doi:10.1177/0075424211414807..

The words are found in more than one legal case, all citing back to this academic paper. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the article itself (it's not in the free abstract) to either verify the quotation or to get a specific page cite, but perhaps another editor, armed with the cite above, can.

The quote was added to the article without attribution by Alcaios (talk · contribs), so perhaps that editor has access and can provide the missing attribution. TJRC (talk) 02:33, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see now that this article is cited, currently as reference #3 in the article, so all it really needs is for someone to verify and attach the reference to the quotation; it is on the full sentence itself, but not in a way that clarifies it as attribution for the quotation. TJRC (talk) 02:41, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

page 142: Because nigger has historically wreaked symbolic violence (Butler 1997; Coupland 2007; Zizek 2007), often accompanied by physical violence, the negative meaning of nigger, which for some African Americans includes nigga, remains an active part of consciousness. For them, the racist meaning obliterates and disallows the legitimacy of any positive meanings that African Americans may claim for the term (Kennedy 2002; Asim 2007; Larkins 2006, qtd. in Echegoyen 2006). Alcaios (talk) 09:41, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]