I like self-loathing Jew as well. In fact, I consider myself a self-loathing Jew, and I'm not even Jewish (I am a Irish/Italian Catholic, although I'm often mistaken for a Jew). I also think the term "Jew-face" is very funny, and I use it to piss off a good friend who is black and Jewish who for some reason only considers herself exclusively black.
But I don't like SLJ nearly as much as I like the word N-gg-r. Don't get me wrong, I don't use it, even in all-white company. But I want to. Not because I hate blacks, or I think its cool or I want to be black, but because its probably the most dynamic and versatile word in the English language. From one sentence to the next, it can be used to express contempt, fraternity, Love, humor, racial identity, racial inclusion (when honorarily conferred on non-blacks), and countless other feelings and attitudes toward the subject. I can't think of any other word that compares and it kind of sucks that I can't include such an effective word in my arsenal. I could put it to great effect even in my profession(for example at a deposition: "Objection to form...N_gg#r").
I give you black folk credit for taking a word loaded with hate, and making it your own.
Labor's case for nigger is basically my own. Frankly, as I've said, I think it's a beautiful, protean, magical word. I love the ATCQ's slur "sucka nigga." I love the retort, "Nigger please." More than that I love, the trivializing disrespect of, "Nigger,what?" I love the fraternity of "Thar's my nigger." I had a buddy whose grandfather used to walk with a cane. But he called the cane his "Nigger-be-cool" stick. because he'd use it as a club, if he had to. My mother used to call brothers who stood on the corner "If I hadda had my gun niggers." She got this from one of my Dad's old Panther buddies who was always talking big about what would have done to some dude who disrespected him if he'd had his gun, "That motherfucker wouldn't have said that if I hadda had my gun." The point was that these were people who lived in this theoretical, coulda, shoulda, woulda world. But to my sixteen year-old ears, "If I hadda had my gun niggers" really came across as something I didn't wanna be. My Moms was a master of deploying language to motivate kids.
Anyway, the point is I love the word, like I love all words. I hate it's overuse, just like I hate the overuse of hot-sauce, sugar or wasabi. But I don't hate wasabi. I basically have decided that the whole "who can and who can't say nigger" should be left to individuals. It's generally true that black people don't like white people using the word, and the case for that is quite obvious--just because my best friend gets to call his wife honey, doesn't mean that I also get to call her honey. They have a particular relationship, based on a shared history. Ditto for blacks.
That said, I've heard anecdotal reports of young blacks and whites--or young blacks and Asians exchanging the word without offense. If that doesn't offend the black people they're using it with, I don't much care. I see no problem with repeating rap lyrics or reporting on something someone said. (People who use say "the n-word" annoy me. We should ban "the n-word" not nigger.) But I'd rather you not use it in reference to me or my folk--unless you're willing to let me call your wife honey.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I'm an over-50 pearl-clutching white woman? You gotta problem with that? You wanna step outside?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Great post. I love all words, too. That's why I warn my young daughter not to rise to the bait of thinking that there are "bad" words and "good" words. It's all about context.
I really think there's two ways of looking at it. Lenny Bruce opined that using the "dirty" word repeatedly would eventually rob it of its meaning - and therefore we shouldn't be afraid to use ANY words (seemingly your position). Trey Parker and Matt Stone, on the other hand, with their sh*t episode of SP thought that certain words SHOULD retain their specialness and power, and shouldn't be overused. I don't use c--- or n----- because I don't think I've ever been put in the right position to do so. It's essentially what makes the routines of the great language g-d Carlin funny. There needs to remain "extreme" words that are only okay in "extreme" context.
"... there needs to remain"???
What moron uses that kind of #$%@ing #$%@$#% sentence structure?
The most versatile magical word in the English language is the F-Word ferfucksake.
The only time I (a white guy) say nigger is when I'm discussing the word itself. (I.e. a conversation in response to this post.) It irks me especially when people say 'the n word' in that kind of context.
Sometimes when I'm rapping along to a favorite track, I say it. But lately I've been saying 'ninja' instead. 'Cause ninjas are awesome.
"I wonder how you would react if you was in my shoes/ I put in work and did the dirt, that's how I payed my dues / Uh, 1-2-3, that's how it be / So all the real ninjas step up like the playas that's in back of me."
Great post. Personally I prefer "mother fucker" as an all purpose perjorative, particularly after Richard Pryor explained it all. That said, I knew Obama was going to be president when i read the following: A couple of young White Obama canvassers are working (insert Appalachian area) when a middle aged White woman answers her door. The canvassers engage her in conversation and finally and gingerly ask her who will get her vote. The woman turns from them and hollers back into the house--presumably to her husband-- "who're we votin' for?" Comes the answer--"We're votin' for the nigger."
You know Byrd, the C-bomb is really heavy and I refrain from use. But it seems that people in other lands throw it around with no problem. Does anybody know why that is?
Did I just threadjack? Oh crap.
Great post.
I will never use the word in a casual conversation. However, I will use it when reciting rap lyrics. To do otherwise is insulting to everyone involved, including the artist. Also, it makes you sound like uptight whitey.
Like when my mother says 'African-American.' As if she's proud of herself for knowing the 'rules.'
Do I have to be offended? This post is kind of a growth of your comments on Zawahiri's dumb message.
When his audio recording was covered in media, all the headlines said al Qaeda used a "racial slur" against Obama. Am I the only one who thinks that house negro isn't a racial slur? Can it be a racial slur if the field negros were african folks as well?
It's really a socioeconomic slur, isn't it?
it depends. i'm a white guy, and i have a few black friends that i don't mind using it around. they know me, i know them, and we together know the context. i've also used it in class discussions. i agree that "the n-word" is horrible. if you are discussing the word nigger, use the word.
It's posts like these that inspire me to write. Words are things to love; you're absolutely right. Much appreciated.
Thanks to my parents, there is no possible way I could ever call anyone a nigger, regardless of context. Even typing the word makes me squirm with shame, like all those lessons about treating people with respect just got flung aside. That having been said, it wasn't a worse word in my home than any other race-sex-religion-ethnic background slur. But I could never call anyone a chink, kike or whore either.
Ok, now that I'm thinking about it, I have used the word as a weapon to mock the right wing in the last election, as in "Boogity-boogity! A Commie Mooslim Nigger is coming for your womenfolk" when confronted by arguments which were absurd except when viewed as thinly veiled racism.
Well this post makes me think (like most TNC posts do). I don't use the word conversationally pretty much ever. But I sure as shit ain't gonna call "Sucka Nigga" sucka n-word or some other weak ass shit either. But luckily I've reached a point in my life where any white folk I may have known (by relation or geographic proximity) to use the word (negatively usually) just aren't any part of my life. And none of the black folk I know use it (around me at least). So it just doesn't come up.
But the ATCQ sucka nigga comes back up -- I can listen to it or any other hip hop that I might listen to (as a certified Stuff While People Like asshole -- though I've never said "old school") and not really worry either way whether Q-Tip is calling someone Sucka Nigga.
But what's a good old fashioned certified white guilt dad who likes to expose his kid to great music gonna do about that one. I mean, yeah we listen to Yo Gabba Gabba and all that other kid stuff, but she likes our music too. I hate to have to weed out great music that's not in any way obscene, but what do you do with a cute little redheaded pale as ghost girl who sings along with songs if you want her to hear the awesomeness that is ATCQ too? I have a recurring nightmare that I'll let some tunes slip through the ipod in the car and the next day the teacher at school is calling and telling me she's singing sucka nigga to her black, brown, white and other assorted preschool buddies.
Guess I'll just stick to Yo Gabba Gabba for a few more years.
Man, this is a threadjack and I think I've unintentionally outed myself as one of those hipster wannabe dads. In my defense, I'm so far from hip that it's not even on the radar.
One of my very best friends is Korean. One of the nicest guys I know, and about as American as can be. However, out at at bars, he'll get called a chink, or have someone make fun of his eyes about once every few months. Typically by a random meathead. No one bats an eye. He doesn't give a shit, but I've come to blows over it before. Making fun of Asians in this country seems to be fully acceptable.
"But what's a good old fashioned certified white guilt dad who likes to expose his kid to great music gonna do about that one."
Whatever you do, don't buy the edited version! I got a bunch of CD's stolen, and bought Wu's Forever from a used music place. Didn't look closely enough at the CD. I had bee's buzzing in place of nigga, and sirens wailing in place of fuck. Almost ruined the album for me.
The best instance of a white person using the word nigga: Larry David, with Krazy Eyez. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzdEAy8WOw
Also, as for your post the other day on the really stupid diss of Obama as a "house nigg*r" by Al-Zaharwi, I really wish Obama could have said a take on the Jay Z "I'm not a businessman" with "I'm not a house nigg*r, I'm a White House nigg*r".
Anyway excellent post.
Yeesh. I've given up. I tried one time to discuss the use of the word with a black friend of mine and he got terribly offended and decided I was some kind of crypto-Klansman. Obviously, the pejorative use of the word is completely unacceptable to me but I don't see any percentage in using it at all, even when it is germane to the discussion at hand, as it is here.
Sadly, this is the kind of thing that shuts down dialogue that really should happen. I agree with you that the "post-racial" thing is kind of bullshit, but God I hope we all someday get past these stupid hot buttons that help us presume that we know what lies in each others hearts.
I got punched in grade school for quoting a black friend who said THA N WORD in an hilarious context in geography class (i.e., by playing dumb about the pronunciation of Niger, the African nation). So as a practical matter I don't say the word in any context around black people any more. I'm one of those white guys Chris Rock was talking about in Kill the Messenger. Oh well!
This may be my extreme whiteness showing through, but isn't there a difference between "nigger" and "nigga"? I have always observed that the former is used in a more negative context, while the latter is more a term of endearment (i.e. "my nigga"). Anyway with hip hop being the dominate musical genre of my generation, the word is almost impossible to not use in some context. One time I said "nigga" in the context of quoting a song, and one of my African American friends looked at me and said, "it's ok for you to say it, you use it ending with "a" not "er", you used it correctly". Context is so important. Great post.
Kobe, you are basically on it. Living in NYC, I hear white kids and latins of all ages describe each other as "nigga". It was weird when I first moved here, an basically I find it ignorant for white kids, who oftentimes mainly use it to sound hard. Normally these underwear-showin' kids are obnoxious as hell.
Oddly, when I hear older Latins say it (I live in Spanish Harlem) it's kinda funny. Sometime they drop it when speaking Spanish. That blew my mind. And they are always talking about other latins.
Typical White Guy here. Okay, not totally typical, because I love hip-hop.
Question: if I want to sing along to a song like Gold Digger, for instance, do I have to beep myself out when Kanye says "she ain't messing with no broke niggas"?
Would you, for instance, be offended, would you just think I'm a tool, or would you think it was okay in the context of wanting to sing along with a song?
Another instance:
"I'm the type of nigga that be pissin in your elevator."
This is some ill shit to say. But can a white dude say it without offending or looking like a fool?
These are important questions...
TNC,
Since you love "Sucka Nigga" so much, you might know that it's an allusion to the film Wild Style. In one of his freestyles in the film, the Chief Rocka Busy Bee has that line "hey sucka nigga, whoever you are."
Coates said: "I had a buddy whose grandfather used to walk with a cane. But he called the cane his "Nigger-be-cool" stick. because he'd use it as a club, if he had to."
Just to illustrate further how these words and phrases can be benign or awful depending on usage, I had a friend growing up whose grandfather was a retired police officer, and we used to play with his old-style billy-club. Grandpa called the club his "n_gg_er-be-good stick".
Paul Mooney made this observation 30 years ago.
Ms. Coates,
Why does the other side of the N-word coin never explored by people who feel about the subject as you do.
Just as I've always been told (as a white male) that there's absolutely no way I can understand what that word means to the black community, there's no way a non-white can understand the myriad of emotional, rational, and, frankly, tiresome aspects of the white feelings about the N-word. That particular balkanizer works both ways, you know.
While we're at it, can you please contact someone at NPR and tell them to decide on what we're calling black people now? Almost daily, you will hear a single commentator go from "blacks" to "african american" to "people of color" in the same segment. It's becoming a pet-peeve.
As far as rap in general is concerned, I was what I would consider an early-adapter to hip-hop, racially speaking. Long before 70% of rap revenue was coming from white suburban kids, I was completely ensconced in the Chicago house scene. Back then, and even up into the early 90's, it was music, movement, emotion, and FUN.
Then it all just sort of ended. I can boil my disdain for contemporary rap and hip-hop down to a single reason...insecurity. If the more you talk about yourself and how great you are, the more insecure you are...most mainstream rappers have to be the single-most insecure lot ever to share an industry. Regardless of genre, I typically loath any group/artist/etc that constantly refer to themselves as themselves. This seems to have become as much a staple of rap and hip-hop as not smiling for pictures and misspelling English for dramatic effect.
TNC,
Labor's observation that the n-word is so versatile reminds me of how we gays often use words like "fag(got)" and "dyke". When used by familiar friends, even the occasional straight friend, the words are affectionate. They even take on an air of political ownership, kind of like how LGBT's have seized upon the word "queer" (which I hear far less often in an affectionate way) and taken the power out of it, for us anyway.
These words are definitely becoming more versatile - it really is a situational word, depending on whom you talk with and who says it. For example, it's pretty common that my friends and I - and we are all gay - might call each other "fag". For each other it's a term of affection. But to hear a straight stranger use the word makes me want to punch them in the nose, because it's unlikely that they're using it in an affectionate way.
But I don't think "fag" is as versatile as the n-word yet. Maybe young gays and their straight friends might call each other "fag" or "dyke" in an affectionate way, but I haven't heard yet.
I guess I'm what you might call a white guy "of a certain age." Around your age, actually, THC. I grew up around black people. And if I talk about having a black friend, I'm not talking about rich people, or people I work with, or just the token friend that means I have understanding of all things black.
I'm talking about people I grew up with, whose mommas wouldn't think once about taking me down if they thought I needed Jesus or wore my hair funny, who would crash at my momma's house making scrambled eggs at 3 in the morning after a night of, um, Bible study.
And rap music was my music (along with punk) from back in the days when they wouldn't play it on the radio. Radio stations, I question their blackness... Back when I laughed in the face of someone who told me that hip hop wasn't music at all, just some lyrics and sounds with a beat. It was the music of my childhood.
I went and lived in Madison, Wisconsin for a year or so and frankly, found that white people made me nervous. Not a single white person, I mean, but going to a party where every single person was white, like really white, just made me uncomfortable. I didn't know how to act. I didn't get where they were coming from. I never knew any white people before who didn't have black friends, who didn't have a city attitude. Mostly, they were nice.
And through all my 38 years, I never called anyone a nigger. I never said the word nigger out loud, unless I was quoting or talking about the word itself.
When my best friend (I have some black friends, ha) told me I was his nigger, I would feel kind of fucked up about it. I even asked him not to call me that, which is kind of unusual, I guess, a white guy telling a black guy not to call him nigger.
Now I've lived in the South for half my life. My family comes from the South. My late grandfather, a farmer, once made me uncomfortable by telling me how some "nigger-fellas" he knew were fine, hardworking people and he never understood why people were so un-Christian towards them, but I was seven and loved my pawpaw so I let it go, although I told my mom on him later.
And when I left New Orleans to go to college in my 30s in backwoods Alabama I finally had to codify an actual policy on the word.
Racists who call black people niggers don't really piss me off for some reason. It somehow kicks in some analytical instinct I have and I just sit there looking at them like artifacts from a bygone age. It's like some Russian from the Middle Ages just told me that the horns of a Jew can be ground down to cure menstruation. Does. Not. Compute.
If you say it in my house, you have to leave. Even when you explain that there's a distinction between niggers and black people, and you were only talking about the niggers, you still have to go, along with the people you came with. It's a little shocking, actually, to be talking to someone you think is cool, and then get a nigger tossed in your face because you're white and obviously, all white people know about niggers.
But the rule is simple: white people don't say nigger. I had to come up with this rule, which I had previously applied only to myself, when a 20-year-old fellow student from northern AL was sitting on my porch sipping on something and started telling me how unfair it was that black people get to say nigger and he didn't or he would be considered a racist.
I kind of laughed at him a little, but he was serious. So I just boiled it down: white people don't say nigger. The word itself, especially in the South, is so imbued with layers of negative meaning, that it is just unacceptable. A friend of mine from back home was listening, amused at the very idea that this constituted some kind of philosophical problem. It's just a matter of trying to be a decent human being. When the student said it was racist that he couldn't say nigger when black people could, we just laughed even harder. Does. Not. Compute.
I don't know. Maybe he's right. Maybe it is racist. If that's the only blowback he ever gets for all the crap black people have put up just in my presence, in my lifetime, I told him, he should consider himself lucky.
Now, I'm still surrounded by hip hop and black people, and I still cringe a little when I hear the word, although I don't really stress on it so much. But I've still never called anyone a nigger, and I probably never will.
I don't know, Heezy, sorry to write a book here in your comments, but I always read you a little funny when you analyze white people because you keep saying you never knew any when you were coming up. But I would be surprised if there were a lot of white people in America who grew up with black people in an intimate way who said nigger a lot and weren't racist. Of my certain age, that is. And at the end of the day, it's about turning your back on the crap of the past. It's about being an honorable person. And like I said to that student, it's a pretty small price.
I've been conditioned to harshly cringe whenever I hear "nigger" being said with a hard "er" like super-white people (like myself) say it. When it's said "niggah," it doesn't hold that same punch for me, I guess because that's how I always hear it in the "right" context (pretty much exclusively from black people, in music or IRL). I'll say it to rap lyrics with an "ah," but that's about as far as my pansy ass goes.
Regarding "reporting on something someone said": around two weeks ago I was out to dinner with my girlfriend's family when she decided to tell the story of the Obama canvasser in western PA who was told by a woman that she and her husband were "voting for the nigger." It should be noted that we were in a restaurant in Brooklyn, and over 50% of the patrons were black. Now that was awkward, and it got a little quiet, but no one said anything to us.
I would venture that it's probably not a good idea to "report" on someone else's usage of "nigger" when in public. Even if people are too polite to say anything about it, it's kind of tough for them to know the context in which it was used. It's kind of a head-turner, so people are just going to catch that word and whatever follows it.
Isn't "motherfucker" just as versatile as "nigger?"
Your reader wrote: "its probably the most dynamic and versatile word in the English language"
Nope. Not even close. A much better word is the F word. See this. Now.
"just because my best friend gets to call his wife honey, doesn't mean that I also get to call her honey." Ooooooo WEE!
JACK'D.
Kiril, just tell your homeboy that next time he tries to run the moral equivalency argument.
Scott,
People of Color is a weird one to me.
"Colored" = anachronistic, insulting but...???
"People OF Color" = avant-garde, respectful?!?
Huh?!?
"explain that there's a distinction between niggers and black people, and you were only talking about the niggers..."
It seems pretty obvious to me that the people who attempt to make this type of distinction end up being the worst bigots of all. As though their racism is justified by the fact that they happen to like their black insurance agent.
"you will hear a single commentator go from "blacks" to "african american" to "people of color" in the same segment."
In my experience, there are two types of people who say AA instead of black...
1. Whites who mean well, but don't personally know any black people. (My aunts and uncles)
2. The type of people who are silently bigoted and wish there was a box you could check for "European American."
I think "people of color" is often used to encompass a wider group of minorities. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, Mongols, etc.
Isn't "people of color" supposed to mean all non-white people?
And "colored" an anachronistic and now insulting term for black people?
I think, though correct me if I'm wrong, that "people of color" is still okay to say if referring to all non-white folks?
As a recovering Catholic, I always found the term "self-loathing Jew" fascinating as well. Not sure exactly why. Not even exactly sure what it means. Even after reading a dozen Philip Roth books.
Brilliant! This is another one of those posts that helps one understand where the phrase "I'm sayin" originated.
My friend and I also find "the n-word" abhorrent. I don't know how to describe it... perhaps, liberal elitism in the worst form. I dunno. However, we often use "the r-word" to differentiate nigger from nigga. So we'll use just "R" to signify contempt.
Love the calling your wife honey analogy.
Btw, do you have Elzhi's album?
“just because my best friend gets to call his wife honey, doesn't mean that I also get to call her honey. They have a particular relationship, based on a shared history.”
My thoughts exactly. As my mother would say, “you hit the nail on the head.”
Scott:
"Ms. Coates..."
See you know you fucked up right..I'm saying, you know you done fucked up right...
While I don't personally use it, I adore its use to denounce or exemplify, aggrandize a Black man's "swagger," ability, prowess or what have you. Note the use of the phrase "that nigger right there!!!" It is a compliment or insult of the highest order that only an African American can deliver with the certain tone and cadence of the griot in his or her "blood memory."
Can we talk about "wigger"? Ahhh man. That's a doozy too. Almost ALWAYS meant to offend.
I know, I know, get your own balogg.
Oh, also, the term "N-Word" is really awful. However, really enjoyable is "N-Bombs."
For example: "I was out last night, and I couldn't believe it, this guy was just dropping N-bombs everywhere." Or "You know that Robert Goulet sketch Will Ferrell does, it's hysterical when he just starts dropping N-bombs."
TN-you may call my wife honey, sweetie, love-muffin or anything else you want (we were separated 6-years ago) but I'm never using that word. As a self loving Jew it's just not gonna happen. As a 15 year old in the mid-60s I spent time with my Rabbi in Mississippi one summer and that word will never be OK with me--no matter who uses it. Sorry.
"I've been conditioned to harshly cringe whenever I hear "nigger" being said with a hard "er" like super-white people (like myself) say it."
Same here. Some people take this a bit far, though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jEBh1VtdT0
The funniest, and saddest, thing I have seen in the past couple of years, was the NAACP having a burial for the word nigger. As if buring a word will make people stop using it or stop acting like one. And with all the problems in black america(baby's out of wedlock, incarceration rates of young black men, aids, poverty, etc.) you would think these fools would have something better to concentrate on. At any rate,I love that the next generation has total ownership of the word. If a non-black person used the word nigger in a sentence directed at me I would die laughung at the sheer absurdity of it. Like what part of 1950 Alabama are you from. My generation has removed some of that sting when its hurled our way. I take much more offense to someone calling me boy than nigger. And I certainly agree, anyone saying the N-word needs the nigger shit slapped out of them.
I personally don't use the word much at all anymore because I have young kids and one day when they were really young I was at Wally World (Walmart for the uninitiated) and there was this kid of maybe 5,6 years old just saying nigga over and over again and there were several white people around with in earshot and I just noticed their different reactions. I kinda vowed right then and there to severely cut back on my use of the word because I didn't want my kids being that particular kid out in public with me or at school. However I CAN appreciate the word nigga especially in a comedic context. So for that reason I am sharing the best off "Uncle Rukus" clip from the boondocks. Its a CLASSIC and it will remind most black folks of at least one person they have ever known or come across in their lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyJU7A2uYJ8
Dead on Coats... ban "nigger"? Maybe... ban the "n-word"? absolutely and immediately. It's the sort of hyper-sanitized bullshit that makes me want to puke.
TNC-
You can call my wife honey.
Fat lot of good it'll do ya.
I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever in my life under any circumstances use the word n*gg*r, nor would I use any other pejorative descriptor for another person. i think my own intestines might rise up and strangle me.
this is because of careful training in childhood by my mother. We were trained to avoid this use of language to the extent that this year, during the election, I was careful to call Obama the "man with the dark hair" and Clinton "the lady with the blond hair" to my 5 year old so that he would not realize that having black skin might make you different.
However, I am not cool enough to use slangy discourse anyways. As a square white woman, I was struck with awe one day when listening to the dining room manager of our faculty dining room, a black lady a bit older than me, who all of the customers adore, in dealing with an irate customer. the customer was not mad at the manager, but was standing there, taking up her time, complaining vehemently. The Manager listened for a while, nodding her head, then she said,
"I know, baby. Can't nobody get no love today."
The irate customer was instantly soothed and walked away happy as a clam. i was struck by the fact that if I ever tried to say anything of the sort, it would sound utterly ridiculous. But from the manager, it was the perfect response to keep her customer happy.
labor's wrong about there being no other word so flexible. He forgets "fuck." That is truly the most versatile word in the language. And it comes without the racist baggage.
I view the "hate" part of "hate-crimes" the same way I view the "obscene" part of "obscene speech". Speech is speech. Crimes are crimes. Speech is not a crime. Although it can be done in furtherance of a crime, speech itself is never criminal, and we need to make this clear.
Until we learn to treat words as words, we will never get beyond racism, never be capable of overpowering its stupidity, because PC's obsession with offensiveness and apology does nothing but channel our energies into a dishonest and childish cycle of dishonor, self-riteousness and hypocritical retribution. Political correctness is a barrier to the truth generally, and a barrier to better race relations specifically. Down with obscenity laws and down with political correctness.
Considering my Dad's family are white Arkansawyers, some of whom use that word a fair amount, I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable with it. When I was very little I may have said it by accident because the way they used it I assumed it referred to some kind of insect. So I have called it "the n-word" because I just can't bring myself to say it or type it. I know that's a bit superstitious and crazy, but maybe I also worry there's some kind of familial racism in me no matter how hard I try to move away from that.
Big Man,
That's what makes the opening of "Straight Outta Compton" so great. The lyrical pairing of that "Crazy Motherfucker named Ice Cube" with "The Gang Called Niggaz With Attitude". It's kind of brilliant.
You can overuse wasabi?
Confession time. In the knitting world, "knittah, please" has become a common usage for dissing someone's current project/attitude/taste level while giving cred to their overall chops.
You have to picture a sixty-something bad ass New York lady peering down her reading glasses while knitting and incredibly complicated Aran sweater being asked if a scarf needs a croch*t edging.
^^ Rofl @ mracine.
The most versatile word in the english language is fuck. Its a noun, a verb, and a modifier. WIth me its all three in the same sentence at least a few times a day.
Damn, TNC, I can't believe you had a chance to bring in WoW and missed it.
One of the best guild names ever:
Bah, I got pwned by html.
The guild name in question: "Naga Please".
TNC - lol, yep, I reread that and realized I managed to misstep there...
Stacy - "In my experience, there are two types of people who say AA instead of black...
1. Whites who mean well, but don't personally know any black people. (My aunts and uncles)"
I'd have to disagree. In my lifetime, it went from blacks, to Afro-American, to African-American. The problem, as I understood it growing up in the 80's, is that Jesse and his crew pretty much rammed African-American down everyone's throats in 1984 (coincidence?) and ushered in an entire new age of political correctness.
The people who still use African-Americans, at least from where I'm sitting, are media-types who cut their teeth during this time and afterward, who were TERRIFIED of offending the black leadership in any way. Liberal or conservative, I don't think it mattered. I observe a sea change, though, in younger media types who freely use black as much as they do white.
The pinnacle of my frustration with this kind of bullshit was during college when they were doing surveys outside the student center. Question 2 asked your race. Asian-American, Native American, Latin-American, African-American, Arab-American, White.
WTF? That survey was written by someone with, I'm assuming, at least a college education. Despite the ridiculousness of the rest of the terms, they are in fact at least geographical regions. Apparently...I'm a White-American and my forebears immigrated here from White. Actually I, just about everyone else in this country with roots going back more than four generations, have just about everything mixed in. I was related WAAAAY back, to Jefferson, so, hell, I may have a little black in my too, for all I know.
Political correctness will be viewed by future generations much like using leeches on sick people is by us.
I'm all for freedom of speech, but do we have to teach our kids how to hate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGdCeMayUjk
I thought this was hilarious! The kids face, priceless...
I really liked Kiril's little essay, and I think it lays bare something about tolerant white folk (of which I'm one): we want to show that we're on the same team.
I remember going to MacAruthur's soul food joint on Chicago's West side with a couple black co-workers when I was 18. Only white face in there. To make myself more comfortable, I started talking liberal politics as a way to advertise: "Same team, guys, same team!"
I think Kiril shows his "same team" credentials by being a principled guardian against ni**er.
For the same reason, I naively wish I could use it, as I'm on the same team. But it seems that, as a white boy, I could only use the word if sanctioned by a close black friend, for use only around said black friend and those who know that said black friend gave me the "I can say ni**er" card.
And being 26, it seems that for my generation, team matters more than skin color.
A question: I often use the term, "black folk." Is that cool for me to do? A little presumptuous?
It's actually pretty simple: by using the term "n*gger" with each other, black folks are demonstrating shared context and emphasizing their *similarity*. If a white person uses it to a black person, it emphasizes *difference* (and a difference that has been used against blacks in many an ugly way for a very long time).
I don't think I've ever used "n*gger" except when discussing the word, quoting something actually said, or (in rare cases) making up a quote in order to poke fun at a racist.
I *have* used the term "d*ke" in what was not intended to be an insulting way, thinking it would be okay. I am straight but have a strong culturally queer component. (Same team!) I found out that that wasn't good enough, and so thought about it very hard for a very long time.
1st of all im african american and im 17 years old and i know wat it feels like to be called a nigger by a hunky but me personally feel that white people should not say nigger only black people can say it cuz we not sayin nigger we sayin nigga dats how we talk and wen we say it we mean bro or sis wen said to a black person wen ya say it ya bein racis and black people better than ya hunkys we got money too and we work hard so there for all i got to say is ahhh haaaa my president is black bitches get like me and now all the white people line up at the nigga house cuz ya mutha fuckas our slaves now {obama 08 09 10 11 12 13 and so on bitches peace im out}
A few days ago me (black), my wife (white) of ten years, and our 2 year old son are watching TV. She started to read out loud some words on the screen that included the word nigger.
I wasn't offended. She's said nigger several times before in the context of whatever conversation but for some reason I was bothered by our son being around especially since he is in that phase of repeating everything without knowing the meaning.
I didn't say anything to her about it and I don't think I will... or should I?