Group discusses language and marginalized communities

On Tuesday night, the president of HOPE Multimedia Company Domingo Guyton led an interactive discussion and analysis of the effect of language on the identities of marginalized groups, focusing on use of the N-word.

Guyton was the guest speaker of “Straight Outta Ya Mouth: Why Words Matter,” an event at Du Bois College House that investigated the history of the N-word and its effect on black identity. It is the second part of a three-part series called “Identity, Intersectionality, and You,” a Year of Discovery program designed to inspire social justice on Penn’s campus.

Second year student in the Graduate School of Education Moe Jackson is the Graduate Assistant for the LGBT Center, which is organizing the series with Du Bois and Civic House. He said a major goal of this series is to mobilize what he called the upsurge in interest and awareness of marginalized groups.

“I think that the new wave of social activism is creating a lot more interest in the experiences of marginalized communities,” he said.

Guyton asked the crowd whether n****r and n***a are equivalent terms with identical connotations. Some members of the crowd, including a woman from New York, said the words have the same meanings.

Second year student in the Graduate School of Education Briana O’Neal, who is from North Carolina, said she had a different understanding.

“In the South the former [n****r] is used by whites and carries racist meaning,” she said.

Guyton proceeded to describe the history of the word “n****r.” He said its first sign of adoption by the black community in the United States was as an “internalization of their pain” and carried no “endearment.”

Guyton said the word can be traced back to postcards of lynchings mailed to and from southerners in the early 20th century. He said its first use is in a postcard that reads “Bo pointn [sic] to his n*ga.”

He argued against the the use of the N-word as a term of endearment in hip-hop. He said it was originally used in negative contexts with degrading connotations, citing lyrics from songs by Biz Markie and EPMD released in 1988.

He disagreed with the idea that the word could be reclaimed by the black community as a term of endearment and compared using it to reflect solidarity to putting rat poison in a cake.

“Bury the word,” he said.

The series culminates in a final event in March. Jackson said his goal is the “mobilization of the entire student body towards social activism.”

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