Why the N-word is so toxic

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It is probably the most radioactive word in the English language. At the same time, the N-word is kind of everywhere: books, movies, music, comedy (not to mention the mouths of people who use it frequently, whether as a slur or a term of endearment.) So on this episode, we're talking about what makes the word unique — and how the rules about its use line up with other words.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Just to heads up, the following episode is about the history and current use of a racial
0:04.6	slur.
0:05.6	The end word.
0:06.6	You'll be hearing the word in its entirety at various points throughout the episode,
0:10.2	so please proceed accordingly.
0:12.4	What's good, y'all?
0:14.4	I'm Gene Demby.
0:15.4	I'm Karen Griegs-Bit.
0:16.9	And this is Code Switch from NPR.
0:19.8	We spent a lot of time on this team talking about language, code switching, as a lot of
0:24.0	y'all may already know.
0:25.0	It comes from social linguistics.
0:26.8	We have a whole series on the blog and on the podcast that we call word watch, where we
0:31.9	take some word or some saying or some phrase that tells us something about race or has a hidden
0:38.0	history around race.
0:39.7	Yep.
0:40.7	We tried to dissect words like yellow, brown, POC, and sigh, bipocl.
0:47.4	No.
0:49.4	Spook, white trash, white tears, boy, outside agitator.
0:55.0	Namaste, terrorism.
0:57.0	Also, gung ho, hodunk, nappy, hispandering, mixed, sassy, mumbo jumbo, sold down the river.
1:05.7	We even took on the word racism as well.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.