The Etymology of Nigger 

Nigger is derived from the Latin word for the color black, niger. 

According to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, it did not originate as a slur but took on a derogatory connotation over time. 

Nigger and other words related to it have been spelled in a variety of ways, including niggah, nigguh, niggur, and niggar. 

When John Rolfe recorded in his journal the first shipment of Africans to Virginia in 1619, he listed them as "negars." 

A 1689 inventory of an estate in Brooklyn, New York, made mention of an enslaved "niggor" boy. 

The seminal lexicographer Noah Webster referred to Negroes as "negers." (Currently some people insist upon distinguishing nigger—which they see as exclusively an insult—from nigga, which they view as a term capable of signaling friendly salutation.)

In the 1700s niger appeared in what the dictionary describes as "dignified argumentation" such as Samuel Sewall's denunciation of slavery, The Selling of Joseph. 

Recent scholarship presumes that the word “nigger” has always been a racist epithet thrust upon African Americans to demean Black social identity in the United States. 

But how is it, then, that the word “nigger” emerge as a slur more virulent than other racially coded language from the post-revolutionary period such as “African,” “Black,” and “darky?” 

This article demonstrates that before 21st century hip hop made popular the word “nigga” with a soft “a,” “nigger” had long been two words with multiple meanings: one for Black speakers and another for white. 

Using evidence drawn from blackface literary and cultural productions from the 1770s to the 1840s and from the writings, speeches and memoirs of Black activists and authors from the 1820s to the 1860s, this article shows that the violence and power behind the word was based precisely on the fact that African American laborers used the word themselves. 

“Nigger” had once described an actual labor category. 

Black laborers thus adopted it into their own vocabulary as a social identity to claim a sense of national belonging, akin to a proto-pan-Africanism. 

Once blackface theatrical productions gained popularity in the early 1830s, in a trick of ventriloquy, white performers and later their audiences put the word “nigger” into the mouths of Black caricatures to authenticate these anti-Black portrayals. 

In doing so, whites blamed Black people for using language meant to subjugate them and thus accused African Americans for being self-acknowledged “niggers,” a discursive weapon in the fight for white supremacy that, in turn, buttressed white notions of national belonging. 

Just as whites love justify their atrocious actions by stating some Africans sold Africans into slavery (indentured servitude , not understanding the concept of chattel slavery) and that some blacks were slave owners. 

Those black slave owners were indoctrinated & assimilated into a capitalist mindset, not understanding they were being used and that eventually their assets would be taken and that their descendants would be mistreated.

In response, Black transatlantic abolitionists denounced white usage as a great verbal symbol of American hypocrisy.

TAKE ITS POWER AWAY… OR TAKE IT BACK ✊🏾

I PROPOSE AN ADDITIONAL DESCRIPTION BE ADDED TO THE WORD NIGGER IN THE DICTIONARY IMAGE:

4. Positive (as oppose to offensive or negative) ⬇️

a.) first humans on the planet.

b.) a member of the human race, genus Homo Sapiens Sapiens without Neanderthal DNA.

c.) a class of humans with superior genetics for living on a planet sustained by the sun; eumelanin is an advantage to your skin, it looks healthier and has anti-aging properties.

d.) a descendant of the Sub Saharan African which has 9 DNA Series; while other groups have only 6… Reference Dr. Robertson 

Humans with dark skin pigmentation have skin naturally rich in melanin (especially eumelanin), and have more melanosomes which provide a superior protection against the deleterious effects of ultraviolet radiation.