Students met in the SUB Tuesday to discuss at length a word so controversial, few will say it out loud.
UNM's Black Student Union held its second N-word Luncheon on Tuesday, where a panel broke down the issues surrounding the word and its usage.
The panel addressed how the word has managed to stick around for so long.
"I'm offended when someone calls me the N-word. I am offended because I understand, No. 1, the history of the word," said Stephon Scott, a law student and professor of Africana Studies. "The word was designed to cause pain; it was used to stratify groups of people and to put one group at the very bottom of the social ladder. So when I think about it or when I'm called the N-word, there's no question that I'm offended."
Janelle McLean, president of Black Student Union, said the word doesn't just get its meaning from the speaker's intention; it has power because of how it has been used over time.
"The fact that we use the word to denote negative meaning and negative feelings gets everyone upset over a word, but it's actually just the history behind it and because we internalize the pain that comes with the history - that's what causes the problems," she said. "So, we need to focus the issue of where the racism and the history of the N-word comes from itself, not necessarily just focus on the word."
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Panelist and Ph.D. linguistics student Huram Smith said the N-word has been used in many different contexts, positive and negative, throughout history. He said the N-word is just like any other noun in that respect.
"Language is something that is determined by speakers at the time of discourse, and that's true of not just the N-word but of language generally, and so it's always going to be context-dependent," he said. "It also has to deal with in group activity as well. For example, women (or) homosexuals who use terms amongst themselves that may not be appropriate for use outside their group."
UNM athletics adviser Deidre Gordon said pop culture has transformed the word, making it a term of endearment among some.
Smith said the N-word is no different from other words in any language and ought to be studied as a historic artifact.
"I think what has happened though is that we've now created this new environment where we can finally talk about it, and there are a lot of unanswered questions pertaining to it because, I think, the American educational system has done us a real disservice," he said. "We have a very Eurocentric perspective on the world and on language. And so racism is encoded in our language, and it's something that no matter who uses (the N-word) it's certainly a touchy subject."
