I'm in my mid-thirties, and one of the moments from my grade school years that stuck with me was an experience I had in the 6th grade. 11-year olds do dumb stuff like look up swear words in the dictionary and giggle about it, like we're doing something naughty. Honestly, at the time I was trying to find the literal meaning of the words I heard people use all the time. I looked up fuck, shit, cunnilingus (that was an interesting one for an 11 year old), etc. One word I looked up had a definition that honestly confused me at the time: nigger.

Let me preface this by saying that I firmly believe that "nigger" is often interpreted as a racist statement; rightly so, it's been used to inflame race wars countless times. My argument is not with the use of the word itself. I don't agree with non-POC people not being allowed to use the word because this is a free country and I can do whatever the fuck I want, first amendment bitches. However, the context is important. If I call someone a dumb nigger, they don't have to be a POC. There's plenty of white dumb niggers out there (see also: CHAZ). But you should fully expect an ass-whooping if you call a black person a nigger, mostly because of the strength the word carries. If they took the sting out of the word, it wouldn't matter anymore. Sadly, that day has yet to come and is now even further away than before thanks to current events unfolding before us. If I'm allowed to do something that other races are not allowed to do because I'm white, we can never be equal. The inverse is true, especially in regards to this word in particular. But I digress, my soapbox voice only carries so far.

Anyhow, I looked this word up trying to figure out what it meant because the black kids were always calling each other "nigga" and at one point my black female bus driver laid into a kid for saying it in front of her. Probably based. What I found flabbergasted me; there was only one definition for the word nigger: "A silly or stupid person." There were no secondary definitions referring to race or anything like that. They even used it in a sentence and there were no racial connotations of any kind. It read like a post from 4chan. So here I am, 11, bewildered, wondering "why are black people calling each other idiots like we call each other dude?" Keep in mind, this was about 25 years ago in the mid-90's, and this version of Webster was one from the previous 10-15 years (I can't remember the year exactly but I think it was 1988). Either way, there it was plain as day.

Now let's sidetrack and talk about Kindle. They release e-books that they can edit any time to fit the current narrative and nobody knows better, or they can do nothing about it. Reporters can write factually inaccurate articles and correct or retract them later after every loyal reader has read them. Compare that to books, which once written, are there for life unless they're destroyed or burned (see also: current book burning craze). If you look up "nigger" on the MWD website right now, or google it, you'd be surprised to see that there is literally no definition that matches the above description. It only relates to slurs against blacks or non-black POC. I don't have a problem with the site getting current with the times, as I agree with them, my issue is that they not only REMOVED the original definition that I know for a fact I read with my own two eyes years ago, but they go on to say that there is some misconception that the word previously defined "ignorant people", and the vehemently deny this ever being a thing. The fucking balls. There are still dictionaries out there with the original definition and they're LYING about it.

I challenge anyone with a library to dust off an old copy of MWD from the pre-2000 era and take a picture of the definition of the word, and post it here.