Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's son, we who be
Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens. ~Ella Baker
In the advocacy space, we talk constantly about boundaries. We talk about how healing from trauma requires others to respect the lines we draw around our safety, our dignity, and our histories.
Yet, when it comes to the “N-word,” a bizarre double standard emerges.
Too often, people outside of Black American culture—who witness the word popularized in hip-hop, film, and social media—dismiss the pain, anger, or boundaries surrounding it. They might label Black folks who reject the word as “sensitive,” “uptight,” or “childish.”
But dismissing a group’s collective boundary around a deeply violent (torture) word isn’t just narrow-minded—it is a form of cultural gaslighting.
If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking that the rejection of this word is “no big deal” or “childish,” here are four uncomfortable truths to reflect on.
1. Mainstream Trendiness is Not Universal Acceptance
Just because a word is highly visible in global “pop culture” does not mean it has been universally accepted or healed.
The reality: Within the Black American community itself, there is absolutely no consensus. Countless activists, elders, and everyday individuals actively reject the word, arguing that you cannot sanitize a term designed to strip away human dignity.
The mistake: When outsiders dismiss these internal boundaries to validate their own desire to use or consume the word, they are choosing their own convenience over a community’s ongoing processing of historical trauma.
Personally, as a Black American GenXer who might be a bit closer in age and vicinity to some experiences when the word was used (growing up in the American south with parents and grandparents telling stories sharing newspaper clippings, and funeral programs of friends and family no longer at the table due to targeted violence.) We grew up in the shadow of Jim Crow. I shared in a podcast episode that at the same time that many adults were against the cursing in hip hop songs, we were being called the n-word as we marched in holiday parades with our high school marching band in certain cities. By the adults.
So an entire movement of adults protesting their own children hearing the word on cassette tapes, but no one policing adults calling Black children the word in real life.
There are a lot of words young people use about women that I stop at the front gate too. I recall using words and phrasings I would not dare let older members of my family catch me saying. Hopefully as time passes, you grow. Maybe.
But then, some of the folks who have no problem saying the “n-word” also disbelieve any present-day accounting of lynching. They would rather that we believe that it ended a long time ago.
2. Global Black Identity is Not a Monolith
For many Black people outside of the United States—whether from Caribbean nations like Jamaica or Trinidad, or African nations like Nigeria, Ghana, or Kenya—their relationship to this word is entirely different.
The cultural disconnect: Many Black immigrants did not grow up with this word as a localized tool of daily survival. To many, the word is viewed strictly as an American media export—for some, it is a cultural intrusion that runs entirely counter to deep-seated cultural values of respect, eldership, and familial dignity.
The projection: Expecting a Black person from London, Toronto, or Lagos to “get over it” because American media popularized the term is a form of cultural erasure. It forces a highly localized American trauma onto people who have completely different linguistic and cultural boundaries.
3. Respecting Boundaries is the Baseline of Healing
If a Survivor tells you that a specific word, action, or dynamic triggers a sense of unsafety, the baseline of empathy is to respect that boundary without demanding they “prove” their pain to you.
The same rule applies culturally. To look at a word with centuries of physical and systemic violence attached to it and say, “Well, it’s in a rap song, so why can’t I say it?” is a refusal of basic empathy.
The Bottom Line: When a non-Black person attempts to use, police, or downplay the word, that trust does not exist. Instead, the historical power imbalance and the ancestral threat of the word are instantly re-injected. Insisting on accessing a word that does not belong to your history is an exercise of privilege, not a sign of “inclusion.”
Calling the rejection of that word, with all of its history and present-day violence and torture attached to it, “childish” completely erases the grief and the survival documented in those very obituaries. It asks people who remember the cost of the word to pretend the danger was never real.
I do not ever stay for conversations from people lecturing on word usage who are not actively focusing on changing the conditions for the people to whom the slurs and hate have been directed. When it comes to the n-word, I am never going to be interested in how those whose word usage it impacts the least feel about it.
Maybe everyone can reflect on their individual connection to the word. But, no, I don’t want to hear that “no one in your family uses the word” when you are so eager to say the word now. And meanwhile, every member of a Black American family has “the first time I was called the n-word” story. And then we have to prepare our children.
My child has a first time he and his friend were called the word online playing video games. Then there was in-person as he was working in a retail store, and the item a woman wanted was sold out. He was disappointed because he would not have done that to her.
I moved him through the best way that I could. Then I had to call family to help me through it. My baby….. Our baby….
How many words are in the American English Language???
- Over 170,000 words are in current use, according to analyses of major dictionaries.
The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 600,000 entries, including obsolete, technical, regional, and historical words.
If you include scientific terms, slang, proper derivatives, and specialized vocabulary, the total number of possible English words exceeds 1 million.
For a typical speaker:
An educated native English speaker usually knows 20,000–35,000 words.
Highly literate adults may recognize 40,000–60,000+ words.
About 170,000 words are in common current use, but the total vocabulary of English is well over a million words when specialized and historical terms are included.
Pick another word. One that does not have raped, lynched, and tortured bodies connected to it.
Or not. I can’t tell people what to do, but I can tell you that even when others laugh along…it may raise questions for them. About you. And no paternalistic speech from you over another culture’s practices is going to change that.
Let’s do better. Let’s listen to understand, not to bypass.