There are many different interpretations of the meaning and origin of the word "nigga" and many different attempts to rationalize the use of it. However, all agree that it is a word originally created by racist whites to express contempt for black people and to convince whites of their superiority.

The word was created as a combination of the Spanish (European) word "negro," which means "black," and the Greek word "necro," which means "dead." Those who designed the word intended to plant in the minds of whites, blacks, and the entire world the image of black people as inferior, contemptuous, and mentally dead. This was done to support the psychological enslavement that was necessary to keep black people physically enslaved.

The whites responsible for slavery wanted everyone to accept the false idea that black people were not even human. As a result, it was easy for the Supreme Court of the United States to rule in the infamous Dred Scott Case that as far as the US Supreme Court and the Chief Judge of that court were concerned, blacks were only 3/5's human and therefore had no rights that the white man was bound to respect.

During the slave trade, when Afrikan people were forcefully torn from the continent of Afrika and transported all over the world, the European (white) who controlled the slave trade realized that he had to strip the Afrikan (black people) of all culture such as original names, languages, and religion because these things all contained value systems, traditions, ways of worshipping God that were constant reminders of both our individual and collective value, worth, and greatness. Names like Nubian, Kamite, Axumite, Ashanti, Mandinka and Kushite all carried proud legacies of civilization that Europeans knew they had to erase from our individual and collective psyche. In order to accomplish that, they outlawed anything and everything belonging to or identified with Afrikan culture and forced us, instead, to accept their names, languages, religions, and along with that, the terms "negro" and "nigga."

When our ancestors refused to accept the names "negro" and "nigga," and refused to accept any name other than their own or to practice any other religion, they were summarily tortured, mutilated and murdered in the worst imaginable ways. This inhumane treatment instilled fear in the minds of the other Afrikans, thereby enforcing on them the shackles of mental as well as physical slavery.

When the European used the word "nigga" towards us, it was used as a mental whip to force us into the image they had created of us: mentally dead and equal only to the animals of the plantation. It was meant to reinforce all the lies and false images they had built up to justify our enslavement and the brutal and savage way they treated us. It was but another form of "the lie" that justified servitude and blackness. According to "the lie," Ham (the alleged foreparent of black people) looked upon the nakedness of his father, Noah, and he and his descendants were, therefore, cursed by God with blackness and with servitude to all other people who would hold us in contempt.

The word "nigga" was one of the most damaging tools used by the European to force mental slavery on black people. It not only promoted the idea among Europeans that we should be held in contempt, but it caused our own people to adopt that same attitude. Our people began to call one another "niggas," and look at each other in the same way that Europeans looked at us, with all the hatred and contempt they intended. It was used against us in ways that made us hate our women, our children, and ourselves.

This word was at the very foundation of the condition of the mental and physical slavery suffered by black people. Nobody else in history was called that horrible name and made to suffer the degradation, humiliation, and emasculation that it inflicted on black people. No other people have been made to live perpetually for more than four hundred years with that terrible stigma and the terrible lies that go along with it.

Yet, from the very beginning of those physical and psychological wars against us, black people have fought against the enslavement of our bodies and our minds. Our ancestors fought on every level, at every turn, and against every attempt to force us to be looked at or treated like "niggas." The slave revolts and rebellions in America, in Afrika, the Caribbean, and throughout the world, were consistent struggles by our people against it.

Many of our wars were successful, but they were not publicized because the European knew then, as he knows now, that if our people knew of these successful battles against enslavement and injustice, then that spirit of resistance and revolt would spread in ways that would encourage all of us to commit to the struggle. Thousands of Nat Turners, Denmark Veseys, Gabriel Prossers, and Cinques existed then and exist now in spirit, and they knew/know it.

Afrikan people fought and won from the very beginning. The struggle continues, and today there are thousands of black people who fight against injustice and win! But part of the purpose of the word "nigga," both then and now, was to make you believe that you had no value or right to be respected, and, as a result, to take away confidence in yourself or in anybody who looked like you. It was designed to make you believe that you could not win.

Brothers and Sisters, the Civil Rights Era in America was about black people struggling on all levels not to be called or treated like "niggas." We fought to be treated like human beings with an equal right to freedom, justice, and full equality, as is our natural-born right!

We know that there are still those in this society and the world who would like to see us, who will try to make us see ourselves and have the entire world treat us like "niggas." We need to remember that there are those who still fight against it and we should join in that fight in every way we can. We know that we are not "niggas" and that no human being deserves to be called or treated like one. We know that the use of the word, whether it is used by us or by others, is historically tied to the intention of putting black people down. It is disrespectful to our ancestors, our parents, our children, and ourselves.

Although there are many who use this word unaware of it meaning and history, this is no excuse. We know, too, that there are those among us who use it to put us down, on the down low, like smiling in our face while stabbing us in our back. We should not allow either to continue because, no matter who uses it, it is like a shackle around our necks and on our minds.

Words do have power! Words have the power to cause people to act in certain ways, and when you use a word that was designed to put black people down, used to help enslave, rape, murder and brutalize black people, then it does not matter how you think you intend to use it. When you call someone a "nigga" it means what it was originally designed to mean, and it belittles all black people.

We must consciously stop using that word ourselves and we must ask others not to use it. Think about this, my Sisters and Brothers: No matter how you think of yourself - whether as an African American, Afrikan, Rastafarian, Boriquen, Nubian, Kushite or whatever national origin you identify with - you should not call anyone a "nigga." When you do, it comes back to slap you in the face. You should ask/demand that people respect your past, your present, and your future and you should respect everyone else's.

Think good about yourselves. Say what is good about yourselves and our people and work to rescue, reclaim, and restore black people to our rightful place in history in the present and in the future.

Note: Brother G. Baba Eng, currently at Great Meadow Correctional Facility, has been imprisoned in New York State for 27 years for having killed a man who pulled a gun on his wife. During that time, he has transformed his life and become a prisoner of conscious and consciousness. He will be going before the parole board in December when he hopes to be granted a parole so he can come back to the community to fulfill the "vision of service" he has already started.