MACON, Ga. — A Warner Robins pastor issued a challenge to his congregation on Sunday to stop the use of a racial slur by the very people it was meant to oppress.
Pastor Troy Wynn Sr. preaches at Freedom Church in Warner Robins and says it is high time the practice ends.
"The challenge that I issued to my congregation this Sunday was to absolutely, from this day forward, do away with the word, the N-word," Wynn said.
Wynn, an African-American who admits he used the word colloquially in the past, says when you look at the history of the word, there is no reason for black people or anyone else to use it.
"There is nothing complimentary about the word. It was designed to force black people to accept the fact that they were inferior," Wynn said.
Wynn argued that despite the black community's attempts to 'reclaim' the word and change its meaning to something positive, its discriminatory history cannot be ignored or reclassified.
"We wind up echoing that psychological terrorism that we had heard over and over again," Wynn said. "Then hip-hop took it and tried to make it cool, put a beat to it, made it dope, so now we're dancing to something that should be insulting us."
Wynn said black people dislike when other races use the word, but if the black community does not end its use then there is no reason to assume others will either.
"I think therein lies the hypocrisy within us, because we don’t want them to use it, but we want to use it with each other, and then we try to finagle the spelling to legitimize the use of the word," Wynn said."If it’s not good for them to use, it shouldn’t be good for any of us to use."
Wynn preached the message to his congregation on Sunday and says it 'exploded,' and he's received positive feedback.
Sammy Mark, who's attended Freedom Church for three years, says changing behavior is crucial to changing the culture.
"I love all people, but I'm here to help the black man, and I can help him better by changing my vocabulary a lot," Mark said.
Wynn said encouraging other rhetoric to replace the racial slur can promote positivity in the black community.
"We have innovated and created so many things, why don’t we create some new terms or like I said, adapt the terms 'king and queen,'" Wynn said.
Wynn says Black History Month is the perfect time to put an end to the practice and he has a responsibility as a pastor to put an end to some of what he calls 'nonsense' among youth and others.