WHY IS THE N-WORD SO PAINFUL

For me, growing up white in Europe, I didn’t really get why the N-word was so awful, so full of hate and absolutely forbidden. Nobody truly explained its meaning, the terrible history it carried or why we shouldn’t use it. I only learned the real story in high school. Before that, all I knew was that white people had enslaved Black people a long time ago. But even that idea was so simple and incomplete that it didn’t help me grasp just how horrifying and dehumanizing those times truly were.

I will use raw language and I will not soften things, because these people deserve for their history to be told as it really is, not in half-truths .

Can you imagine having your freedom taken away from you? To be a completely normal and moral human being, but because you are the “wrong” color, you are not entitled to anything?

This word isn’t just any word. It’s a scar on a history that still feels open.

Some words you hear and quickly forget. Then there are others that stick with you, words filled with fear, violence and humiliation. Generations of people learned to look down when they heard them. The N-word is definitely one of those.

For hundreds of years, it wasn’t just a casual word. It was a tool. During slavery, the goal was clear: to strip people of their humanity and leave them with only the identity forced on them by others. They weren’t seen as people with names, just as a position the system assigned them. And when they heard it, there was no way for them to talk back or fight against it and even if they tried the consequences were unspeakable.

But the violence wasn’t only physical beatings. It was also in the constant humiliation every day. It was in the way someone called you as if you had no soul, in your body not being your own and in others deciding your whole life. Enslaved people weren’t treated like humans. They were not even treated like animals, because today, if you treated a dog the way Black people were treated, you would, at the very least, go to prison. The reality was that they were treated as if they were dirt stuck to someone’s shoe.

On the slave ships, many died before even reaching the land where they would be enslaved. Some chose to jump into the ocean instead of facing what was ahead. These people were forced to march for many miles in terrible conditions, moving through the harsh parts of Africa until they reached the western coast. Once there, tired, hurt and often sick, they were chained up and crammed into the holds of ships anchored nearby. These trips took many days and the conditions were so awful it’s hard to put into words. On these journeys, terrible things happened regularly, like rape, physical abuse and constant whippings. Ship captains said that, to scare the other enslaved people, they would cut off someone’s arm or leg when they misbehaved. There was a belief that if you lost a limb, you could never go back home.

From time to time, bodies were thrown into the sea. Sometimes they were already dead from illness, other times people were still alive, left to die slowly and terribly in the water. Historical records say sharks would follow the slave ships because bodies were thrown overboard for them to eat. Even for those who made it through the trip, there was no freedom, just a different kind of prison.

Historians say that about 12 million Africans were sold into slavery around that time. Out of that number, about 1.5 million died on the ships during the trip.

Everyday life also showed how deep this violence went. Even now, you can find Black hair in old pillows and sofas, a sign that even tiny parts of the body could be controlled or disrespected. Enslaved people’s teeth were often pulled out to make dentures: in fact, George Washington’s dentures were made this way.

Family life was just as brutal. Women under slavery weren’t just living through it: they were forced into what became known as "breeding camps’’ where they were repeatedly raped and once again forced to bear children in order to replace the countless enslaved people who died from horrific living conditions, violence, disease and relentless abuse. This ensured they’d have children who would also be enslaved, keeping the system’s cruel cycle going.

According to genetic studies, the average African American today has approximately 24% European ancestry. The presence of European ancestry is linked to the dark period of slavery, as it largely results from rape and the exploitation of enslaved women by white slave owners.

There have been claims that slave owners forced sons into raping their mothers in order to produce “stronger” enslaved people.

The scenes of torture, whipping and rape shown in the film 12 Years a Slave were in no way exaggerated. In fact, they were likely understated compared to the full reality.

In medical history, there are also records of unethical experiments on enslaved women. Our knowledge of the female body is largely linked to experiments and open surgeries without anesthesia that were performed on Black women during slavery.

Their bodies became tools for labor and property for others.

That’s why this history is so hard to carry. It’s not just that it happened, but that it left wounds that never really healed. After slavery ended, the dehumanization didn’t vanish. It continued through different times, through segregation, unfair laws, signs, specific behaviors and even looks that made certain people feel they’d never truly belong in their own home.

Maybe the most painful part is that schools don’t teach us enough about all this. We usually get a basic overview, not the complete truth. We hear about the past as if it’s over, but for many, the pain never truly went away. If you don’t actively search for it yourself, if you don’t read, if you don’t listen to people’s stories, a lot of it stays hidden.

Even though African Americans in the U.S. were legally “free” for decades, laws that separated people and limited their rights in things like owning property, getting an education, and finding work stayed until pretty recently. In November 2000, Alabama was the very last state to officially get rid of the law that stopped white and Black people from marrying each other.

So, choosing not to use this word today isn’t overreacting. It’s not being sensitive for no good reason. It’s taking a stand. It’s showing respect. It’s a clear choice not to, even indirectly, keep alive something that came from dehumanizing people. And for me, anyone who calls it ‘just a word’ either hasn’t truly learned its history or they are simply deeply disturbed people.