Speaker: The speaker is Ta-Nehisi Coates who is African American himself.  This is made obvious since he uses the word “we” when talking about African Americans. He also states, “But ‘n*****’ endures in our most popular music and on the lips of more black people (like me) than would like to admit.” He has 6 siblings and is married.

Occasion: Due to the incidents that he mentioned in the article (the usage of the word in the Miami Dolphins, Los Angeles Clippers, Philadelphia Eagles)and how each incident had a different reaction because in one of the incidents it came from someone who was black. It is important to bring this up and to talk about this subject because racism is very much still alive and although I’m sure we know of people who use this word amongst their crowd, context is everything.

Audience: It seems that he is directing this towards African Americans. He often uses the word “we” when mentioning African Americans which shows that he is talking to the African American community.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to stress how significant words are. As he saids, “words take on meaning from context and relationship.” He uses examples of those women who call each other bitches but if someone else was ever to, it would be a problem.

Tone: Coates tone is rather serious and passionate about the subject. He recognizes the negative impact of the word, “if you could choose one word to represent the centuries of bondage, the decades of terrorism, the long days of mass rape, the totality of white violence that birthed the black race in America, it would be n*****.” But he also recognizes that he too also uses the word and doesn’t use the word in an offensive way. That’s why he raises the idea about context.

Thoughts: This article is a great argument for those people who think “If black people calm themselves n*****, then why can’t I say it?” or “I have black friends so why can’t I say it?”.  I think that people sometimes forget the strong and negative background that this word has.