deniggerize

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

de- +‎ niggerize

Verb

deniggerize (third-person singular simple present deniggerizes, present participle deniggerizing, simple past and past participle deniggerized)

  1. (transitive, sometimes offensive) To raise (a black person, etc.) above the traditional negative racist stereotypes.
    • 1996, Carl Upchurch, Convicted in the womb: one man's journey from prisoner to peacemaker:
      A broad spectrum of African-Americans have used education to deniggerize themselves []
    • 2000, Iceberg Slim, The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim, page 89:
      But Al had accused Holly of going beyond the wishing to live the delusion that she had escaped the trap of blackness and had become an adored equal in a racist white world that considered her deniggerized and no longer tainted []
    • 2003, Keith Gilyard, Liberation memories: the rhetoric and poetics of John Oliver Killens, page 140:
      Included in Killens's attempt to change or deniggerize the world was a continual verbal assault on literary, media, and educational establishments relative to their collectively abysmal record of promoting positive Black images.
  2. (transitive, sometimes offensive) To free from black people or their influence.
    • 2010, Stuart Buck, Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation[1], page 85:
      In some areas black schools were integrated only after insulting efforts to 'deniggerize' the school were carried out (replacement of all toilet seats, fumigation of the school, etc.

Antonyms

Derived terms