Oluo and Coates

The discussions that Oluo and Coates have about the N word is very interesting because their point of views are not that different from each other. It seems that they both believe that not just the N word, but words in general can have power and can impact a certain group of people. As Oluo writes on page 137, “Words have power. Words are more than their dictionary definition.” This illustrates the fact that the N word, since this is the specific word being discussed, is a way to really define racism where whenever it is said to black people, it can be defined as discrimination towards people of color. When speaking in terms of how rhetoric it is and how it applies to this class, it is important to learn about how something as little as one word can shape the world in a way where there are so many problems with race already without the use of the N word, and when it is used, the problems only continue to add up.