Blog 1, Learning Outcome 2

     The gap between 1964 and 2011 doesn’t seem like a big one, what’s 47 years?  In his moving and inspiring book, Why We Can’t Wait, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bridges the void between past and present with his impeccable diction and ability to demonstrate human traits that we still exhibit today.  One of the biggest changes we’ve experienced since the turbulent 60’s is the use and connotation of the word, “nigger.”  Dr. King writes, “The Negro in Birmingham, like the Negro elsewhere in the nation, had been skillfully brainwashed to the point where he had accepted the white man’s theory that he, as a Negro, was inferior.”  Dr. King also writes, "Negroes are human, not superhuman."  This sentence goes to show that blacks were no different then any other race, except for the fact that they were fighting for their freedom and winning it, but it was never just handed to them.  The word “Negro,” the root of “nigger” was a word of such negative feelings, used to make African-Americans feel secondary compared to whites at the time.  The word dates so far back, to the days of slavery, when blacks working in cotton fields were called, “niggers” and nothing else.  It’s easy to see how such language was used to condemn people and make them feel inferior to others, but the part that’s a little more complicated, is how the word and world has evolved.  Nowadays, the word “nigger,” and its spinoff, “nigga,” are used as endearing terms, something to describe a brother or close friend.  Its crazy how a word, one that in Dr. King’s book and one that used to be so degrading is now used as a term of friendship.  Language changes so massively from one generation to the next.