The N Word Synthesis Paper

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was something the little boy should have called her. She tries to think back if she has ever heard the N-word used by anyone in her large extended family. She discusses the ways the N-word is used with in the black community. Using the N-word in singular form is always applied to a man who distinguished himself in some situation. "My nigger" became a term of endearment for women to use when discussing their significant other. The N-word in the plural form usually signified a community that overstepped boundaries of decency. Naylor writes, "So there must have been dozens of times that nigger was spoken in front of me before I reached the third grade. But I didn't `hear' it until it was said by a small pair of lips that has already learned it could be a way to humiliate me". (338) After hearing the N-word many times, she still had to go home and ask her mother what it meant. It was very different having a young white boy call her a nigger, and hearing it thrown around in conversation ...

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man" we can replace the N-word. There are over one million words in the dictionary that we can use instead of the N-word. Both the article and essay discuss using the N-word, but comparing and contrasting them reveals they are different. Although both the essay and article discuss similar use of the N-word within the black culture.
Gloria Naylor's essay "The Meanings of a Word" touches on the way she felt when she was called a nigger. In Naylor's essay she writes:
I didn't know what a nigger was, but I know that whatever it meant, it was something he shouldn't have called me. This was verified when I raised my hand, and in a loud voice repeated what he had said and watched the ...

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