Inundated by the n-word

With unsettling regularity, in public places where music is being played for all to hear such as from a juke-box, I, a black man, find myself being inundated with the N-word by some young black rapper.

Imagine being in an establishment with peers of various races, creeds, and colors when out of the blue, some rapper on a record is saying "my N-word", "you N-word", or "expletive N-word".

When this happens I feel insulted by the rapper. I feel like he is undermining the efforts of all of those people who fight for equality.

I would not stand for it if my peers used this epithet, I would be outraged. And in that same manner I am outraged at the rappers and all those associated with the creation, distribution, and sale of music that use that word.

It is incredible that these rappers get away with insulting the black race in this way. They should be shunned, but they are admired by many of our youths.

A musician of any other race would be run out of town on a rail if he dared to use that word. But we're supposed to buy that it's perfectly OK for a black rapper to throw the word around like it's going out of style?

I wouldn't stand for it if a white person used that word to insult me, but I have to listen to it spewing from the stereo on every third rap song? It's time for a change.

But how can I presume to represent black civil rights and complain about the use of the N-word by rappers, producers, and record companies as an insult to my ethnicity when many of my black brethren pay to hear that word yelled at them?

How can the black community be taken seriously when it says that blacks deserve the same respect as all others when we disrespect each other so blatantly?

If I were in a Jewish establishment and there was anti-Semitic music playing all night, I would have to assume that anti-Semitism wasn't a big deal to them. That's the same impression I get now when I hear black people degrading each other in rap music. Equality is a big deal to me, so I've got to speak up.

What does it say about the black community when we have no outrage when our young people sprinkle their lyrics with such a vile a word as if it were a sweet spice?

And don't get me started on cursing in rap records, or the anti-family, anti-intellectual, anti-social, anti-female, pro-crime lyrics. Most current rap music does not even deserve to be contrasted with the uplifting positive songs from Black groups from the fifties, or the early Motown days. What happened!

Our fathers and grandfathers grew up in a world where that word, which was intentionally steeped in disrespect, was reserved for us when a white man wanted to publicly humiliate us and separate us from the community of men.

That word was used to describe a sub-man. That word was not only an insult, but it was a double-whammy because it demonstrated, by the fact that it was so dehumanizing and simultaneously so freely used, that blacks were second class citizens.

The only thing I can think of that's more degrading would be to voluntarily wear slave shackles as jewelry.

Music reflects the world-view of the culture from which it stems. Does this behavior in rap accurately reflect where we want to go as a society? Is a world where young men model themselves after the characters in rap tunes a place where you want to live? No! So let's not surrender the culture to this bastardization.

Does Mr. Bell even realize the n-word he complains about is a weapon used by blacks against other blacks as they tear one another apart to the amusement of white people?

Rap music is little more than the black culture being held up for ridicule. Rap music is not marketed for blacks. Are you kidding? It’s young white kids that are targeted with this racism.

I don’t get it. I truly don’t. I beleive the KKK has infiltrated our music and entertainment industries.

Sounds like you are well aware of the “wigger” phenomenon of which Eminem is the high priest.

Rap and/or hip-hop is produced by blacks for blacks to listen to and buy but white kids are where the money is, so the WHITE music executives target them with their swill.

I’m quite sure that if the black population were big enough and affluent enough, the execs wouldn’t worry about white kids even though plenty of them would still buy the junk just to act hip. I really believe it’s all economic and very cynical on the part of the music industry and it’s serving to degrade two large demographic groups because kids will always be rebels looking for the most outrageous things to listen to, see, and do.

The preachers and moralists of the 1950’s who railed against R&B and R&R, saying such music would degrade white culture and “negro-ize” white kids, don’t look so nutty now, do they?

The preachers and moralists of the 1950’s who railed against R&B and R&R, saying such music would degrade white culture and “negro-ize” white kids, don’t look so nutty now, do they?

True, true.

I've been around long enough to remember when Elvis Presley made popular all that "black-folks music." And that Sam Phillips and Sun Records was a label exclusively for blacks. But after Elvis, he went "white" and dropped all his black recording artists.

Fast forward 50 years and you have BET and MTV as the leaders in racist entertainment today.

The preachers and moralists of the 1950’s who railed against R&B and R&R, saying such music would degrade white culture and “negro-ize” white kids, don’t look so nutty now, do they?

True, true.

Fast forward 50 years and you have BET and MTV as the leaders in racist entertainment today.

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