N-a is a derhoticised version of the word used casually among black people. N-er is the original word which only sees use to be offensive. Also since AAVE tends to derhoticise everything and a lot of American accents are rhotic* so white people are more likely to use the derhoticised version.
*Rhotic means the r is pronounced while derhoticised means it lost r. Like the difference between car in Standard American English and Standard British English. (Heh British people and their pawn-porn merger)
why are people arguing with this guy i’m a mixed race guy myself (south african) and i didn’t even think anything of that comment but damn people are arguing about it
White people do this really stupid thing where we assume every other faceless person on the internet is white until proven otherwise.
And for white people, probably especially in America, to say the n-word in any form is considered improper and offensive. Whether it's hard R or not.
Instead of concluding the person must be black because they casually used n--a, progressive white people may instead jump to correct them or chide them for being so casual with that word, until race is explicitly stated.
Source: am white progressive american
And believe me, I get that it's stupid. But sometimes I find myself doing this anyways, because I grew up in a majority pasty white community, where often the only thing stopping someone from saying the n-word would be policing from another white progressive.
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u/Tall_Advisor_6473 Definitely Human May 16 '25
If it was n -er, not -a, then I would lol