If whites call blacks niggers what should blacks call white then

1. History and meaning: why the slur is not just a word

The slur "nigger" developed in the United States as more than an insult; museums and historians document how it condensed a suite of racist caricatures and pseudo‑scientific dehumanizations that justified slavery and segregation, making the word a vehicle of systemic oppression rather than a mere insult ^{[1] [5] [6]}. Linguists and historians note that the term has "wreaked symbolic violence" and is often described as "perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English," which helps explain why reciprocal naming does not simply mirror harm symmetrically ^{[7] [4]}.

2. Reappropriation versus reciprocity: intra‑group uses and public bans

Some Black speakers use a reclaimed form—often transcribed as "nigga"—in contexts of solidarity or affection, a phenomenon documented in sociolinguistic and encyclopedic summaries that stress the intra‑group nature of that usage ^{[3] [4]}. At the same time, civil‑rights organizations such as the NAACP officially condemn the use of the N‑word in public and intergenerational contexts and have policies urging bans and education, signaling that even within Black communities there is strong institutional resistance to normalizing the word ^[2].

3. Power asymmetry matters: why symmetry is a poor justification

Scholarly analyses of slurs emphasize context and power: slurs operate within social and institutional power structures, and the historic ability of white Americans to inflict physical and structural violence on Black people means that simple reciprocity—Black people inventing an equivalent slur for whites—would not neutralize that history and risks replicating dynamics of dehumanization rather than redressing them ^{[4] [1]}. Research on the psychological and long‑term harms of racial epithets further supports the view that slurs are not reducible to equal‑opportunity offenses ^[8].

4. Practical ethics and strategy: alternatives to reciprocal insults

Commentators and scholars offer two pragmatic alternatives: refuse the framework that makes slurs the central form of exchange (avoid reciprocation), or deploy language that names behaviors and institutions rather than essentializing groups—terms that target actions, policies, or historical facts rather than invoking ethnic degradation ^{[9] [10] [4]}. The NAACP’s formal stance to ban the word and educate youth branches reflects an explicit strategic choice to deprive the slur of currency rather than multiply epithets ^[2].

5. Internal debates and limits of prescription

There is no unanimous view: some cultural critics and writers argue for policing public use while acknowledging intra‑group linguistic shifts, and others insist the word is unsayable in any context because of its history ^{[9] [10] [11]}. Scholarship and opinion pieces alike document contested meanings—some see reclamation as affectionate, others as perpetuating harm—so any prescriptive answer must acknowledge these internal disagreements ^{[3] [11]}.

6. Bottom line: what should be called to whites when provoked?

Given the historical weight of the slur, the documented harms and institutional calls to ban it, and scholarly emphasis on power and context, the most defensible collective response is not to invent a racial equivalent but to refuse reciprocal dehumanization—name conduct, demand accountability, and use language that undermines prejudice rather than reproducing it; sources cited here show both the reasons for restraint and the real debate over intra‑group usage, but they do not endorse tit‑for‑tat ethnic slurs as a remedy ^{[2] [1] [4] [3]}.