“The Heart of Darkness,” by Joseph Conrad was written in 1898 and 1899 and published in 1902. So, although it wasn’t surprising that the word used to describe a black person was nigger, it was insulting just the same. Throughout the short story I had to remind myself of the time period it was written.
Joseph Conrad is nothing short of a genius. His writing technique is eloquent, and surreal and yet after having completed “The Heart of Darkness,” I couldn’t help feeling a little insulted by the oft used word nigger. My feelings lead me to do a little research on this word nigger. I checked three dictionaries: (1) the “Oxford Concise Dictionary,” (2) the “Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary,” and (3) “The American Heritage Dictionary.” They all had in common one definition, “a member of any dark-skinned race.” In addition, they all said it was “offensive.” Webster’s went one further and said “a member of a socially disadvantaged class of persons.” Now this last definition was closer to what my parents had told me the meaning of the word nigger was, an ignorant person. I tend to like my parents’ definition much better than all the rest combined!
The word nigger is actually derived from the Latin word niger which means black. Okay, so we’re getting closer to understanding now. So why all the controversy surrounding this word? I even have to wonder if “The Heart of Darkness” was written by a black author would I have been equally or less offended? This word nigger was recently the cause of a controversy between two very prominent directors, Spike Lee (black) and Quentin Tarantino (white), in regards to Tarantino’s new movie “Jackie Brown.” Lee felt Tarantino used the word nigger too many times in his movie and considered it a racist act. I’m not sure, but I believe Lee too has overused the word in his movies and yet he publicly cries foul when Tarantino does the same thing. What makes blacks so offended by whites using the word nigger when they use if themselves?
The main reason touted is because some blacks use it (and I mean use it often) as a term of endearment. Then there are some blacks (usually the upper crust) who use the word as an insult, as in Webster, as a description of a low class black person. If one was to use my definition “an ignorant person,” wherein this way it possesses no race, creed or color, there would be no black/white controversy because ignorance has no color boundaries. This is a weirdly less offensive way of describing someone. I couldn’t begin to imagine a director complaining that someone used a word meaning ignorant too often. If one follows the history of nigger, as a derivative of niger (black) it was a descriptive representation of my race’s dark-skin, not as an insult. The insult in those days was the way we were forced to come to America and the treatment thereafter. It is true that even today in some states, especially the Southern states, the “n” word still holds the derogatory meaning, but within time that could be changed.
Is there a happy medium with the word nigger, depends on the arena a person is standing in when it is said. Why is it comical when comedians such as Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor and the later Red Foxx used the word throughout their profane-based comedy acts? I know some white people who were extremely offended by Martin Lawrence’s stand-up comedy routine; and yet most blacks find him hysterical. Again, double standards. If anything, some black people find the aforementioned comedians offensive, not because of the use of the word nigger, but because of the amount of profanity used in the comedian’s monologue.
In my opinion, if my race is going to get upset over the use of the word nigger, we should all just stop using the word. We certainly cannot expect other races to stop using the word, while we use the word, whether with love or hatred, every chance we get. The word is derogatory and is no more acceptable between my brothers and sisters than from someone of another race. This double standard is not only harmful, but unfair. No matter the history of the word, we now have, in my opinion, too many words to describe a black person. We have black, African American, Afro-American (what does that mean?), person of color, and lets not forget my all time personal favorite, colored. In the end, the only word we all need to remember and practice is respect.
The Heart of Darkness, which follows closely the actual events of Conrad’s Congo journey, tells of the narrator’s fascination by a mysterious personage who, by his eloquence and hypnotic personality, dominates the primitive savages. Full of contempt for the greedy traders who exploit the natives, he cannot deny the power of this figure of evil who calls forth from him something approaching reluctant loyalty.
