You may have read about Yahoo Finance‘s hilarious typo the other day, featured in an article titled “Trump wants a much nigger Navy.” It was a couple hours until it was taken down, but that was enough time for #NiggerNavy to be born on Twitter, with people cracking jokes about Yahoo’s unfortunate mistake.
But what’s the big deal? Why is the word “nigger” so contentious?
In this video, I break down that history a little more, but what I didn’t mention is that this fits into a national conversation about race.
Studying the effects of the word “nigger” and language in general can help us further understand the campaign of dehumanization people of color have suffered in the US for a long time. There are many white Trump supporters who are now insisting that we stop opposing Donald Trump for the sake of unity, but unity will only come, and racial divides will only heal if we endeavor to better understand our histories, ourselves, and each other.
Understanding language as a construct that has a decided power to shape reality, we can be more intentional about the way that we use it. Even though it can sometimes be uncomfortable to delve straight into these topics, I hope you’ll learn something from confronting them head-on.
Watch below:
