Greg Gutfeld, a Fox News host, told conservatives to say, “What up, my Nazi? Hey, what up, my Nazi?”
His reason for using the word? African Americans reclaimed the N-word, so he could do it too.
Racial epithets are deeply offensive and hurtful terms rooted in histories of discrimination and violence. Their use is considered acceptable in academic and educational settings when analyzing historical texts, literature or discussing specific instances of racism for educational purposes. This is also true of creative works, most often fiction, when portraying prejudiced characters or to accurately reflect historical periods, which is why I don’t expect to hear them said flippantly on television.
Racial epithets are derogatory terms used to insult or demean individuals based on their racialized identity. They are often associated with prejudice and discrimination, aiming to express contempt and hatred towards the targeted group.
These terms carry a strong negative connotation, are inherently negative and intended to cause offense. They are designed to evoke feelings of anger, shame and humiliation.
The meaning and impact of racial epithets are also often tied to historical and social power dynamics, which can vary depending on the specific term and the context in which it is used. And while not all racial epithets are directly linked to violence, they can contribute to a climate of hostility and prejudice that can escalate to harmful actions.
Racial epithets are examples of dehumanizing language, which fosters intergroup conflict. It reduces empathetic responses and increases the likelihood of aggression towards the dehumanized group.
Dehumanizing language is a crucial element in maintaining and perpetuating systems of domination. But language can be transformed into a tool for resistance and liberation. It can be used to create more just and inclusive ways of being.
This was not Gutfeld’s argument. “We need to learn from the blacks,” he said. “The way they were able to remove the power from the N-word by using it.”
But notice that Gutfeld didn’t say the word, even while referring derogatorily to African Americans as “the blacks.” Because he knows better. He knows not to.
While it is used as a term of endearment by some segments of the African American community, the intent of the N-word remains. Because the violence of white-body supremacy is that its etymology cannot be denied and has not ceased to exist, which is why European Americans, persons racialized as white, cannot say it.
Born in chattel slavery and a part of methodical humiliation, the N-word’s origin is oppression. It is and will always be a racial insult rooted in white-body supremacy and African American inferiority. Poet Langston Hughes once observed, “The word n***** to a colored person is like a red rag to a bull.”
It is also a part of America’s founding and its founding documents, as observed by Ralph Ellison. The Founders committed “the sin of American racial pride,” he said. “They designated one section of the American people to be the sacrificial victims for the benefit of the rest… Indeed, they [African Americans] were thrust beneath the threshold of social hierarchy and expected to stay there.”
It’s why it’s not just any old word. I would argue it is one of the vilest words in the English language, and due to the brutal violence that often followed its use, it is unmatched in meaning.
In addition, the word is rooted in the denial of the personhood, bodily autonomy, agency and dignity of African Americans. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote about it in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”: “A n***** should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do.” Minister and abolitionist Hosea Easton observed in “The Condition of the Colored People of the United States; and the Prejudice Exercised Towards Them”: “‘n*****’ is an opprobrious term, employed to impose contempt upon [African Americans] as an inferior race.”
So, should racial epithets be reclaimed? I think you know my answer.
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Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
