'ER' or 'A' - should anyone be using the N word?
You know 'that' song. The one that gets you in the zone. When it comes you can't help but sing along ... but do you sing all the words?
This year the theme for Black History Month History Month is reclaiming is narratives. The N word is a controversial narrative that often divides groups. Is this a narrative that should be reclaimed or is the common use of the word within the black community an anchor to a traumatic chapter in Black History?
On the one hand hand, it’s important to remember the context. The origins of the word are evil. It was used to spew hatred and instil fear. For some this is history for others a childhood or adolescent memory. Parents and Grandparents of today will have personal anecdotes of how that word was weaponised against them and from this perspective it's easy to arrive at the conclusion that this word shouldn’t be used by anyone.
On the other hand, there's the argument that ‘we’ve taken that word and made it our own’.
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Kintsugi is a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery or porcelain with gold, silver, or platinum.
According to Jay Wolf “the story of kintsugi … may be the most perfect embodiment of all our trauma-shattered lives... Instead of throwing away the broken beloved pottery, we’ll fix it in a way that doesn’t pretend it hasn’t been broken but honours the breaking — and more so, the surviving — by highlighting those repaired seams with gold lacquer. Now the object is functional once again and dignified, not discarded. It’s stronger and even more valuable because of its reinforced, golden scars.”
Is this Japanese tradition symbolic of how we use the N word today? Is this what it means to repurpose the meaning of the word and turn it into a term of endearment. We don’t know, which is why we’d like to open the floor to YOU!
AKD Solutions recently hosted a roundtable discussion and the outcome was extremely insightful and this feels the perfect topic for No.2.
If you’d like to join us in this roundtable discussion, click here to register your interest and somebody in our team will be in touch.
Head of Sport at AKD Solutions
3moI like to think of myself as a modern kinda guy and 'down with the Yout' but using the 'N' word as a term of endearment just doesn't sit right with me! I think about my children and what they have grown up listening to in their choice of music and having to explain to them what some of the words in lyrics meant or came from and telling them not to use them.....certainly not in my presence!