Friday Fire 2: What Are Your Thoughts On the Word Nigger? Should Anyone Use It?
I copped Nas’ Untitled (formerly Nigger) and NYOIL’s Hood Treason. Both are hot and I’m not just saying this for my own interests.
You be the judge.
I’ll ask Nas this very question next week at Webb’s event. Did a sick two hour interview with Webber recently. I’ll let you know where its gonna be printed at a later date.
This should have been a question on this site a long time ago, but there is no better time than now.
Should anyone use the word nigger?
Not sure what lil Lizzie was crying about? Maybe she got beat up as a kid and was reminiscing a bit..
Anyway, is it cool for Blacks to use the word? Team of endearment? When Whites ask why is it OK for Blacks to use the word, what exactly do they mean?
Why would Whites want to use it…especially in a pejorative context?
In Scoop’s interview, Vantage Point, Scoop asks this very same question.
What about Dave Chappelle?
Sphere: Related Content
July 18th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Why is the white woman crying??? That was kinda funny. I have another question, if white people cant say Nigger, should black people not be allowed to cracka?. I am just saying i am brown, and i dont get offended when ppl call me sandnigger, however i feel that if you can call someone a racial slang, they should be allowed to return the favor. Yes i know certain words have more history and more hurtful. But it comes down to what context it is used in.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Holy shit, i forgot about that Chappelle skit. That was funny as hell. He needs to come back. Mind of Mencia is getting boring.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
The answer should be an emphatic NO! But we as Blacks still use the word just as freely as those other than us use it behind our backs.
Term of endearment? I used to go along with that notion. But during the late 60’s early 70’s wasn’t the term of endearment, “Brotha or Sistah”? That reperesented unity in spite of whatever went on around us. So now we use it in our own way. Ok, you take the same whip from massa to inflict pain on your own? And don’t get me wrong I’m just as guilty for using the word and I’m not proud of that. We’ve “flipped” it supposedly to our advantage but what has really come from that?
Ask yourself this: Say you’re out at a restaurant and you see an old friend from high school and he says, “What’s up my N***a!” What’s going to be your first thought?
I have never seen anything positive come from the use of the word. Past Present or Future.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Well said brotha.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
First, I’d like to say that I find that word to be one of the ugliest words in the English language and I’ll never say and I’d just as soon never hear it again, BUT I don’t feel that I am in any kind of place to tell someone not to use a word. It’s unfair of whites to say, “Well we invented it to hurt you, but now that we feel bad about inventing it, we don’t want you to use it because it reminds us of what bastards we’ve been.” Sorry. It doesn’t go both ways. There are millions of reminders of the past and present suffering of Black people but we can’t handle one little reminder of our past indescretions? Responsibility has to be taken and if that means by suffering the reminder of a shameful past than so be it. Also, there are some who claim they NEED that word to help heal. That by “flipping” it, as TLP suggests, they can move on with it. I find that a little dubious but I’m not going to tell anybody how to get through 400 years of institutional suffering that I can only imagine. However, I’m pleased that the usage of the N-word goes down daily.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Excuse me, I wrote TLP meaning the Last Poet, when I was refering to The Brotha Report. Apologies and I would like to say I agree with every word of the Brotha Report’s comment.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
No problem Nick
July 18th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Ask Dick Gregory.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
And yet I still didn’t get it right. I was quoting The BrothER Report. Wow. I think I might have just blown any chance of my comment being taken seriously.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
TBR Nick, TBR.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:51 am
Good question. I for one never used the word and have never cared for it. My main problem with black folks using it has always been how many blacks use it around white folks whether it is in public or in the media (ex. movies and music).
However I am sick and tired of some whites b*&^%ing that black folks are using it. The only reason many whites are pissed about it is because for the first time in the history of america white folks have been told they can’t do something.
Also I am sick of older black folks who make it seem as though its young black folks who are the first people to say this word. Please I have old uncles and aunts and cousins who are in there 70s and 60s who have used that word as far back as I can remember as a child and I am 33 years old. Sh^% kats like Pryor and Mooney made a living off that word. That word was common in black movies in the 70s. It didn’t start with some rapper in the late 80s.
The first time I heard HNIC was in the movie lean on me. The first time I heard the N word on the radio was when I snuck to listen to my parents richard pryor records. What does Ice Cube say in his new video something about the first time he herad the N word was in 1973.
Last I am sick and f%%king tired of the white media pretending as though if black folks stop using the word that the word will die. Please like Tarentino and Martin Scorsese will stop calling black people that in their movies.
Will white folks that can’t stand black folks stop using that word? Will other folks who hate blacks stop using that word?
He!!! to the nooooo!!!
Perfect example black folks don’t do blackface………but a whole lot of folks that aren’t black do blackface all around the world making fun of black folks all around the world.
AlsoJag Desai thats you I know a few middle eastern folks that I have worked with who didn’t like slurs like that and who have made complaints to HR and have gotten managers fired for that ignorant mess. I for one don’t play that sh%$.
But you know Mizzo black folks are the most hated people in the world. Everybody hates us, but everybody and they momma want to mimick us. The want to dress the way we dress, talk the way we talk, walk the way we walk, dance the way we dance. They want to do what we do then turn around and talk about us. Or talk about how we have no culture and its all backwards. It just amazes me.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
“But you know Mizzo black folks are the most hated people in the world. Everybody hates us, but everybody and they momma want to mimick us. The want to dress the way we dress, talk the way we talk, walk the way we walk, dance the way we dance. They want to do what we do then turn around and talk about us. Or talk about how we have no culture and its all backwards. It just amazes me.”
KRS-ONE said it best: “What go around, come around I figga, Now we got white kids callin’ themselves niggas.”