Nigger, what does it mean to you?

Well there I've said the word that we are not suppose to say. Why can't we, if we are not using it in a racial slur?? Most people think they know what it means, most people believe it means some lower life form, ect..
Lets talk about the term "Nigger". Wher did it come from? What is its uses? why is it so bad to be used by white people? 
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people (generally people of Sub-Saharan African descent), and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur. The word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger, meaning the color "black.
For years it was used as a racial slur. Even me in my childhood years used the term "nigger" when I was growing up. It was just the norm. Blacks would be so enraged when a white person used the term. I just couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why they got so mad. Did I really have that much power of someone that I could say one word and make them go insane?
Since most people think the word "nigger" just means black peole here are a few other uses of the term:

1. Nigger as "defect" (a hidden problem), derives from "nigger in the woodpile", a US slave-era phrase denoting escaped slaves hiding in train-transported woodpiles.^[7]
2. In American English: nigger lover initially applied to abolitionists, then to white folk sympathetic towards black Americans.^[50] Sand nigger, an ethnic slur against Arabs, and timber nigger and prairie nigger, ethnic slurs against Native Americans, are examples of the racist extension of nigger upon other non-white peoples.^[51]
3. In British English, the maritime term niggerhead denotes a bollard mooring post, made with an old cannon, partly buried muzzle-up, topped with an over-sized cannonball; it is sailor's jargon for an isolated, navigation-hazard coral outcropping. (see quay).
4. In the Victorian era, the 1840s Morning Chronicle newspaper report series London Labour and the London Poor, by Henry Mayhew, records the usages of both nigger and its false cognate niggard denoting a false bottom for a grate.^[52]
5. Flora and fauna nomenclatures include the word nigger. The Arizonan nigger-head cactus, Echinocactus polycephalus is a round, cabbage-sized plant covered with large, crooked thorns. The colloquial names for echinacea (coneflower) are "Kansas niggerhead" and "Wild niggerhead". In Oceania, the "niggerhead termite" (Nasutitermes graveolus) is an Australian native.^[53]
6. During the Spanish–American War US Army General John J. Pershing's original nickname, Nigger Jack, given to him as an instructor at West Point because of his service with "Buffalo Soldier" units, was euphemized to Black Jack by reporters.
7. Nigger rigged= means to temporary fix something in an unusual manner.

       In 1960, a stand at the stadium in Toowoomba, Australia, was named the "E. S. 'Nigger' Brown Stand" honoring 1920s rugby league player Edward Stanley Brown, so nicknamed since early life because of his pale white skin; so known all his life, his tombstone is engraved Nigger.Stephen Hagan, a lecturer at the Kumbari/Ngurpai Lag Higher Education Center of the University of Southern Queensland sued the Toowoomba council over the use of nigger in the stand's name; the district and state courts dismissed his lawsuit. He appealed to the High Court of Australia, who ruled the naming matter beyond federal jurisdiction. At first some local Aborigines did not share Mr Hagan's opposition to nigger. Undaunted, Mr Hagan appealed to the United Nations, winning their recommendation to the Australian federal government, that it force the Queensland state government to remove the word nigger from the "E. S. 'Nigger' Brown Stand" name. The Australian federal government, however, thwarted Hagan and the UN recommendation, by citing the High Court's jurisdiction ruling. In September 2008, the stand was demolished. The Queensland Sports Minister, Judy Spence, said that using Nigger would be unacceptable, either for the stand or on any commemorative plaque. The 2005 book The N Word: One Man's Stand by Hagan includes this episode in law and the language. Hagan is also writing a doctoral thesis titled The Origin, Maintenance, and Legitimization of the Word 'Nigger' in the Australian Vernacular; and he has restarted his linguistic legal reform efforts against the Coon cheese brand name.
 O.k. now that everyone is more educated in the term"nigger", lets talk about the term"honkey"

Definition: Term for caucasian. Derogatory. Origin unknown for certain.
Possibly derived from the Wolof word "xonk" (pronounced like "honk," but with a guttural H at the beginning), meaning "red." Wolof people in West Africa sometimes call white people "xonk-nopp," or "red-ears." It has been speculated that first generation Wolof-speaking slaves may have popularized this term.

Skeptics might point out that the most slaves came from south-west Africa and further east in West-Africa than Senegal, where Wolof people live.

However, many slaves passed through Goree' Island, near Dakar, the largest Wolof city. So the term could have been popularized there.
Also, the Wolof language, having developed as a trade language, is relatively easy to pick up in its most basic form. It is also a rather staccato and crisp language, which might make it easier for non-speakers to pick up on particular words. Lastly, Wolof is spoken in a way that seems unnecessarily aggressive, even when its not intended to be. (The Wolof are sometimes referred to as the "Germans of Africa") This all might tend to make make a derogatory Wolof word catch on relatively faster than a similar Mandink or Ibo word among a multilingual group like first generation slaves. Here is a peice of language used by the Wolof i found on a website:

Xonk-nopp yii, dafa sajjkat. Dumu begg liggey daara, wante Man, mes na liggey bes bu nekk. Xonk-nopp, dafa begg-togg rekk. Dafa am nopp bu Xonk ndakte Yalla dumu ko begg.

 

 

Translation:Lazy thief honkey doesn't want to work, but I have to do all the work. He just wants to sit. His ears are red because God hates him.

 

 Now with that said, how come whites don't get mad when they are called a "honkey" like blacks get mad?
How come blacks can use the term and it's excepted as o.k.?
Personally it makes no difference to me. I never give anyone that much power over me. DO YOU?






Urban dictionary contributed to this blog.