N Word In Pop Culture

Although coming from a rich, multicultural background, I was never exposed to the N-word until I heard a non-black friend sing it with a song. I had a basic idea of what the word meant, but I didn’t berate my friend for using it. As I got older, my experiences developed my understanding of racism and in conjunction, I understood why the N-word holds so much stock. Because of its prevalence in music, movies, and social media, the true definition of the N-word has been overlooked, thus causing its use to become a part of pop-culture.
Due to this fact, the N-word has found its way into everyday language; whether it is used by a black person in an endearing way, or used by a white person in a racist way. Ultimately, I argue that the use of the …show more content…
Morial, Bury the ‘N’-word, where a white man attacked a black man with a bat while yelling racial slurs. His reasoning was that the word has become a part of everyday vocabulary. This is an example in which society has gone full circle with racism while simultaneously skipping the part where we reach a resolution. Blacks have taken a word that was forced upon them and morphed it into a part of their identity while also eliminating the negative connotation surrounding it.
Whites and non-blacks using the N-word is a form of cultural appropriation. In a Huffington Post article, written by Taryn Finley, Imani Diltz defines cultural appropriation as “blatant robberies of culture that are taken and made trendy and conglomerated by white society…” (Diltz) Blacks have accepted a term forced upon them through degradation from previous centuries which makes the use of the N-word solely for them. This is precisely why blacks take offense to whites and non-blacks using the N-word; taking advantage of something that some blacks have just become comfortable with for the sake of a