"If white boys doing well, it's success When I start doing well, it's suspect." Posted on 10/04/2003 2:36:44 PM PDT by demlosers
The 'N' word - anything but black and white
It's either the most viciously racist word in the English language or a rich term of endearment. How has the "N" word come to have so many different meanings? "If white boys doing well, it's success When I start doing well, it's suspect."
The lyrics are from rapper Mos Def's Mr Nigga, attacking society's distrust of black men who do well for themselves.
It carries the refrain: "Mr Nigga, Nigga, Nigga."
Ironically though, when it comes to using the controversial "N" word, Mos Def's line about the inequality between white and black can be turned on its head.
Chuck D abhors the use of the
word as a term of affection
Many would say it's ok for a black person to speak it, but for a white person, it is definitely "suspect".
In the words of veteran rapper Ice T: "If you are it, you can use it." Yet many other black people would shudder at the mere whisper of it.
Surely, no other word in the English language can provoke such polarised reactions as "nigger", which is still widely seen as about the most vicious term of racist abuse there is.
It's a funny
word... a bad word...
it's very twisted
Singer Ashanti
Four years ago a (white) local government official in Washington DC was forced to resign for uttering "niggardly" in public. The word is not even related to "nigger" and the official was later reinstated.
In Britain, it could even be illegal - interpreted as an incitement to racial hatred.
Yet to some, especially in the US, it has actually become a term of affection between black men, the equivalent of "mate", "pal" or "buddy".
Political rap lyric
A new BBC radio documentary highlights how the word has been reinvented - some would say reclaimed - by the black community over the past 15 years.
Lopez broke the 'If you are it, you can use it' rule The influence of black urban music has been at the centre of this recasting, with political rappers such as KRS-1 blazing the trail.
"KRS-1 always used it in the context of looking at it in a negative state of mind," says Chuck D, frontman with one of the most influential rap outfits ever, Public Enemy.
.
Lopez broke the 'If you
are it, you can use it' rule
But it was groups like NWA - Niggaz With Attitude - who promoted a positive use of the word, in a effort to wrong-foot racists.
"They said if you are going to call me one, then I am one," says Chuck D.
Incredibly, the notorious "N" word gradually became accepted as a term of endearment between black friends.
Today, even black artists who are labelled more conscientious, such as soul singer Angie Stone, have adopted the term. "I don't have a problem with it," says Stone, "as long as it's used in an affectionate way."
Historical baggage
Yet other black people remain astounded how an infamous racial slur can be bandied around so freely among those it was used to insult.
Prof Randall Kennedy: 'It's the most infamous racial slur' "People use it but have no idea about the historical baggage," says Professor Randall Kennedy (right), author of Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.
But confusion over use of the word doesn't stop there. Some argue its new found respectability is down to the difference in spelling - hip hop artists end the word with an "a" rather than "er".
And the fall-out over its use in Quentin Tarrantino's film Pulp Fiction - it got 15 mentions - highlighted how many consider the word ok when it is issued from black lips, but not those of a white person. Tarrantino wrote the script and speaks the word in a cameo role in the film.
Last year the same row was resurrected when Latino singer Jennifer Lopez spoke the "N" word in a track she recorded with black artist Ja Rule.
But the comments of rapper Pharoah Monch reveal how perhaps too much is being read into the word's new-found popularity.
For Monch, much of the word's appeal lies in its phonetic quality, and the fact it rhymes well.
"Sometimes I'll go over my words to find a better word, other times I'll just leave it there because phonetically, it fits."
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The word may be used as a term of 'brotherhood' or used for the purpose of making an extreme insult. Nothing sounds as vile and vulgar as a black woman who is really upset yelling the 'N word' at some guy. It can make your hair curl right up and your face turn red. Just that one word.
Personally, I wish the word was never used by anybody ever again. 'Nuff said.
So does this mean that I could say something like: "Gosh, I sure like ______________ !" ?
Umm. I didn't think so...
I never did quite figure out what they were trying to get across. Maybe they were thinking that we just couldn't bear to say "Negro" so we sort of halfway said it. Maybe they thought we Southerners were too ignorant to pronounce the word "Negro".
Anyway in my entire life, born and raised in the deep South, I have never heard a person use the word "Nigra" in actual speech.
Just a couple of weeks ago a coworker of mine was fired because she was overheard using the word in a conversation with another coworker and the busybody eavesdropper reported it. I have another coworker, black, who doesn't see the big deal. It's a word for crying out loud. Granted, it is a word that can be used as an insult, but JUST a word nevertheless.
There ya go drawing logical conclusions. First rule of political correctness: logic must be tossed out.
Well, it is demeaning, but you still have a right to say it...but don't be surprised if you get your face slapped. Of course, there are times that it works....
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Linguisticly (or is it linguistically) and morally speaking there is exactly no difference between using the term "cracker" and "nigger", however one is used commonly to refer to Whites while the other is worse than murder in many people's minds. The same goes for "honkey". It is precisely the same thing ethically as using a disparaging term for Negro.
The word nigger carries a variety of overtones and blacks use it in variety of fashions including some extremely demeaning ones toward other blacks. When I overhear a black on a cell phone saying, "'Yo', bitch 'ho'! if I catch that fuckin' nigger over there I'm gonna beat his ass", you know he doesn't mean anything complementary toward the fellow, let alone the woman.
The word's a part of history. It's preferable that all this foolishness with respect to how bad it is would come to an end. It won't though, but a perfect example of the absurdities surrounding this word are the protests of ignoramuses wanting to ban "Huckleberry Finn" because it includes the word nigger. Such protests only end up showing what idiots they truly are given that they're incapable of getting beyond word and reaching an understanding of what Mark Twain was trying to say.
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