Is the 'N-Word' Going Mainstream?

April 10 -- The n-word, "nigger," is still pretty much taboo in public discourse.

Although it has been revived — some say reclaimed — as a term of solidarity among young black men in recent years, its long history as a powerful and derisive racial epithet has largely kept it out of mainstream culture.

But that is changing, says Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law School professor who has written a new book about the word, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. "People are debating all over the place — in places high and low — about using the word 'nigger,'" he says.

The new usage of the word was popularized by "gangsta" rap, music that celebrated West Coast gang violence, during the early 1990s. It was adopted by many young black fans of rap and hip-hop. The word has been used by comedians like Chris Rock, and in movies about urban culture.

Young black men who use the word say they mean it with no offense attached, as a term of endearment.

"When I say, 'What's up, my nigga?,' that's kind of like 'What's up, my brother?,'" says Joe Plaskett, a 23-year-old from New York.

Scholars say this usage of the word represents an effort by black people to take over the word for themselves, stripping it of the hateful and degrading meaning historically given to it by whites.

"N-i-g-g-e-r — 'nigger' — is a term coined by white supremacists and slavemasters who intended to harm the psychology and the social standing of black slaves," says Michael Eric Dyson, who teaches African-American studies at DePaul University and is the author of Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur. "N-i-g-g-a, n-i-g-g-u-h, n-i-g-g-a-z — 'niggaz' — are terms generated within hip-hop culture... attempts of black people to wrest control over how they will be viewed, or at least termed, by the dominant society."

Generation Gap

But many black Americans, especially older ones, are not convinced. Kennedy, who argues in his book that words' meanings can change with context, says he is often approached by older black Americans who say they understand his argument, but that for them the word will always bring back memories of segregation, of being turned away from ballot boxes, of enforced social inferiority of black people.