N Word Quotes

“The “b” word and the “n” word are like poison, whether you take poison from a vial or pour it into Bavarian crystal, it is still poison.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Unfortunately there is no vaccination to protect the soul from the menacing disease of social ignorance manifested by character-void homosapiens.”
― Tracey Bond

“The N-word is certainly not a word that has, as many suggest, been kept alive solely by hip-hop and rap artists. White people have been keeping the word alive and well too. Any movie about slavery or black history could reasonably include the word a few times just to remind us of how terrible we all used to be, to remind us of the work we have yet to do. And still, the televised version of Roots manages to depict the realities of slavery without the N-word and the miniseries is nearly ten hours long.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“I noticed that among this class of colored men the word "nigger" was freely used in about the same sense as the word "fellow," and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men.”
― James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man

“To be fair, I hate the N-word and avoid using it because the N-word has always been a pejorative, a word designed to remind black people of their place, a word to reinforce a perception of inferiority. I have no interest in using the word to describe myself or any person of color, under any circumstance. There is no reclamation to be had.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“Even the most kindhearted white woman,
Dragging herself through traffic with her nails
On the wheel & her head in a chamber of black
Modern American music may begin, almost
Carelessly, to breathe n-words. Yes, even the most
Bespectacled hallucination cruising the lanes
Of America may find her tongue curls inward,
Entangling her windpipe, her vents, toes & pedals
When she drives alone. Even the most made up
Layers of persona in a two- or four-door vehicle
Sealed in a fountain of bass & black boys
Chanting n-words may begin to chant inwardly
Softly before she can catch herself. Of course,
After that, what is inward, is absorbed.”
― Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

“It feels sadder when a black person says Nigga
Because it sounds like Nigger.”
― Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

“He knows full well what she's thinking. He's waiting for her to say it out loud and violate the unspoken contract that covers white people who are doing everything short of tossing around the n-word in public. And hell, some even want that to be deniable.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became