Offensive Or Empowering? Why Context Matters In The Use Of Slurs.

Take the ’N’ word, for example… Commonly used in grime music amongst black rappers for which we take no offence, yet if a white person were to go around brandishing black people with the N word, then they would be accused of, in their use of such discriminatory language, being ‘racist’ (and rightfully so, I hasten to add)… As a white person, I would never use the N word (which is why I won’t even write the full word out) because, being white, I have no comprehension of what racism is like- I empathise with the experience as someone who has also faced marginalisation in terms of other aspects of my identity (neurodivergence, sexuality), but I can’t pretend, nor would I want to pretend, that I have first-hand experience of racism… Of course, I’ve read the history books regarding the slave trade etc, but I cannot personally relate to that experience/it is not my story to tell. And so, to use the N word knowing all of this would be incredibly ignorant of me and a prime example of white privilege. <a href="https://medium.com/illumination/offensive-or-empowering-why-context-matters-in-the-use-of-slurs-d217e4cc35c7">Read More</a>