Power Of Racial Slurs

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Rachel Rucker Professor Clapper English 1213, 10MWF March 30, 2012 The Power Of Racial Slurs Words today mean so much in society that people seldom look back on the consequences they hold. These words can cause much pain, anguish, and conflict amongst people who do not even know each other. People say slurs such as “jap.” “flip,” “chink,” and “jew” to others, but they do not know who these other people are. These racial, religious, and ethnic remarks are made to demoralize others and to make them feel inferior. Sometimes these slurs are made in society where people have learned to live with them, by them, and from them. The terms of race, religion and ethnicity…show more content…
The connotations used in reference to blacks have evolved to represent African Americans with respect. Presently, the negative connotation of the term “nigger” is used in black dialect very often. They use to term to express the pain and suffering a race has endured. It is frequently used by rap artists and composers. In a recent article in “Hip Hop,” they discuss the reasoning behind the vulgar language and the term “nigger” used in rap in the mind of a famous artist, Snoop Doggy-Dogg. “People gotta see the pain and sufferin that we African Americans gone through. Ain’t no one gonna see anything if we…show more content…
We gotta be able to express and show how we feel and to do that, we gotta use the terms they (white people) use to look at us blacks” (Joshua 78). This is also demonstrated in a song written by a rap group who named themselves “Niggaz with Attitude”. One of their songs recites the following lyrics “You're a nigger 'til you die. If you're a poor nigger, then you're a poor nigger. If you're a rich nigger, you're a rich nigger. But you never stop being a nigger. And if you get to be educated, you's an education nigger” (NWA) To understand the definition of slurs, people must first see it through the view of the remarks by others. People seldom look on the effects it has on others because people do not look at it until it happens to them. People do not see the dehumanizing effects it has on others until they feel the pain of being made fun of due to one’s race, religion or ethnicity. It is really hard to say that people can fully understand the damage caused by slurs towards others until they actually go through them. “A black friend of mine recalls hitchhiking as a young man in the 1930s through an area of the country where very few blacks lived. He was given a ride by a white couple, who fed

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