A friend of mine was doing a photo shoot in a park modeling some swimsuits. Of course, beautiful women in a public place in a swimsuit along with a camera and makeup crew attract attention. One of the girls had some of her friends off to the side outside the roped off perimeter to my left side during her shoot they were loud enough for a few of us to hear their conversation. They kept referring to themselves as N****this and N**** that. That by itself was disturbing, but at the end of their friend’s turn having to comply to all the demands of the photographer and contorting her body all sorts of interesting ways, the guys started clapping and screaming, “You’re a bad b***!” What was the kicker for me was that she acknowledged the fact and screamed back, “I am a bad b****!” 

Needless to say, I have to go “in” on that! When did some black women begin to accept that word, “bitch” as a term of endearment? When did some black men begin to accept that word, “nigger” as a term of endearment? I don’t understand how after all the controversies over the past few years, how both words can still be bandied about as readily as the words, “the”, “and”, and “but.” 

The word nigger comes from the Latin word niger meaning black. No one knows when niger developed into the ultimate insult nigger but, we do know that sometime by the end of the 19th century nigger in all its different connotations did exist. Even though we accept the word is an insult why do we still use the word as a term of endearment in our community? Why have we not created a word to affectionately address each other? 

The word bitch has been used to denigrate women as far back as the 14th century. It was used then and to some extent now as a term to describe a woman with high or loose sexual urges or yearnings. It was then and now used to speak of a woman as a female dog. Why do some women accept to be referred to in that way? 

Both words are unacceptable to be used within our community and outside of our community. We need to hold each other in a higher regard than we do and change the current acceptance level of both words. Ultimately, each one of us must have self-respect and pride in ourselves and in each other to have these words die. We are the examples of the young; if we do not use or glorify those words then the young will not either. By demanding respect in verbiage in others and extending it to others we can ELIMINATE both words from all of our vocabularies.