Nigger has been used to describe a dark shade of color ( nigger-brown, nigger-black), the status of whites who interacted with blacks ( nigger-breaker, -dealer, -driver, -killer, -stealer, -worshipper, and -looking), and anythingīelonging to or associated with African Americans ( nigger-baby, -boy, -girl, -mouth, -feet, -preacher, -job, -love, -culture, -college, -music,Īnd so forth). a concealed motive or unknown factor affecting a situation in an adverse way. leaving a small tip or no tip in a restaurant. a slice of liver or a cheap piece of meat.
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a designated place, usually the balcony, where blacks were forced to sit, forĮxample, in an integrated movie theater or church. A small knife or razor with one side heavily taped to preserve the user's fingers. Exceptionally good luck, emphasis on undeserved. Derogatory term aimed at whites lacking in the necessary loathing of blacks. Wetting the end of a cigarette while smoking it. Acting in an indolent and irresponsible manner. No other American ethnophaulismĬarried so much purposeful venom, as the following representative list suggests: The stereotype of the lazy, stupid, dirty, worthless parasite. Whether used as a noun, verb, or adjective, it reinforced Historically, nigger defined, limited, and mocked African Americans. The word nigger carries with it much of the hatred and repulsion directed toward Africans and AfricanĪmericans. Written, or reproduced in material objects, reflect the extent, the vast network, 3 Many of these slurs became fully developed pseudo-scientific, literary, cinematic,Īnd everyday caricatures of African Americans. Slurs however, no American group has suffered as many racial epithets as have blacks:Ĭoon, tom, savage, picanniny, mammy, buck, sambo, jigaboo, and buckwheat are typical. All racial and ethnic groups have been victimized by racial Prominent beaks or "Irish confetti" for bricks thrown in a fight)(Ehrlich, 1973, p.Ģ2 Schaefer, 2000, p. Ehrlich, a social scientist, argued that ethnophaulismsĪre of three types: disparaging nicknames ( chink, dago, nigger, and so forth) explicit group devaluations ("Jew him down," or "niggering the land") Īnd irrelevant ethnic names used as a mild disparagement ("jewbird" for cuckoos having Such terms are the language of prejudice – verbal pictures of Social scientists refer to words like nigger, kike, spic, and wetback as ethnophaulisms. Almost two centuries later, it remains a chief symbol of white racism. Whatever its origins, by the early 1800s it was firmly established as a denigrativeĮpithet.
That nigger is a phonetic spelling of the white Southern mispronunciation of Negro. One can compare to negre the derogatory nigger – and earlier English variants such as negar, neegar, neger, and niggor – which developed into a parallel lexico-semantic reality in English. In Early Modern French niger became negre and, later, negress (black woman) was clearly a part of lexical history. The Latin niger became the noun negro (black person) in English, and simply the color black in Spanish and Portuguese. The etymology of nigger is often traced to the Latin niger, meaning black. The word nigger was a shorthand way of saying that blacks possessed the moral, intellectual, social,Īnd physical characteristics of the Coon, Brute, Tom, Mammy, and other racial caricatures. With blacks, generally, and are implied in the word nigger. They are also presented as intellectually childlike, physically unattractive, and The Tom and Mammy caricatures are often portrayed as kind, loving "friends" of whites. This depiction is also implied in the word nigger.
The Brute caricature depicts black men as angry, physically strong, animalistic,Īnd prone to wanton violence. Self-indulgent these are also traits historically represented by the word nigger. The Coon caricature, for example, portrays black men as lazy, ignorant, and obsessively 2 it is usually directed against blacks who supposedly have certain negative characteristics.
Although nigger has been used to refer to any person of known African ancestry. There is a direct and strong link between the word nigger and anti-black caricatures.