Am I a nigga for finding nigga still funny, usable, and creative?
Take the title of this blog and this photo. The title came from a quote used in 40-year-old Virgin, one of my favorite movies. The character Jay, who works at the Smart Tech, the Best Buy knockoff, is being harassed for a hook-up by one of his boys. His boy calls him a nigga, as in nigga, you best come through with this hook up. Jay takes offense.
"I ain't nobody's nigga!" Jay says. "You want a nigga? Well, a nigga's here now!"
His boy replies, "Well, you somebody's nigga, in that nigga tie."
Funny, but with a subtle poignance. If you're black, you are somebody's nigga, be it your peeps, your company's, or theoretically and politically the nigga caught up in the American racist regime.
We're (again) debating "that word," as nigga-ologist Michael Richards would say. Now the new debate is whether nigga should be used creatively since Nas decided to title his next album, "Nigger," which is due to be released Dec. 11.
The label stands behind Nas. As they should. If there is anyone I don't worry about where the word, nigga, is concerned, it's Nas, one of the last true hip-hop artists left. If that was Soulja Boy's album title, I'd be a worried, afraid it would be associated to some coon-ass dance. But I know if Nas is titling his album that, its purpose is to educate.
To me, this whole nigga issue relates to two things: 1. Don Imus 2. White privilege. I guess they're one in the same, but as soon as Imus' degradation of the Rutgers women's basketball team turned into a conversation about what's wrong with hip hop, it became a fad to single out a word that is deeply imbedded in both white and black culture.
There is no way you can convince me white folks really give a shit about hip hop or whether black folks call each other nigga. This is about their right to use nigga, not ours. Even simpler, this is about a group being privileged for so long that even the slightest hint that there is ground they can't tread on leads to an all-out assault. Like with affirmative action, nevermind that white folks safely lock down 85 percent of the jobs, that white males on average make more money than any other racial group, white privilege would rather focus on the 10-15 percent that they aren't getting. They must have. it. all.
I wonder what the white folks would do if, tomorrow, black folks told them that they could use nigga as much as they wanted and it wouldn't get in trouble, that this would be 1837 all over again. And subsequently, we decide that we are going to call each other "pork rinds," but the rule is white folks can't call us that. Here's betting that an army of white folks would then bitch they couldn't call us "pork rinds."
This may not be politically correct to admit, but this is still a society where nigga should have its place. I don't see a problem with having a double standard in its application and usage, particularly when we have double standards throughout language that is unilaterally applied to other groups. Men have heard women call each other bitches, sluts, ho's, cows, tramps, hussies, etc., in jest. But most men would never feel comfortable openly referring to a woman in that regard. Around his boys, nonwithstanding. Most women know one of the fastest ways to make a dude turn into Ike Turner on you is to call him a bitch. We call our girls that in a minute, be it in anger or in love. But we know, to a man, this is a direct challenge of manhood. Those are two double standards we follow daily, yet I don't hear men protesting the right to call women ho's, or women protesting for the right to call men bitches.
I have heard Mexicans call each other wetbacks. I've heard Asian people refer to other Asians as having a "gong mentality," which is much like being a coon. Since I'm not a member of either race, I wouldn't be arrogant or presumptous enough to tell them what words should mean in their own culture.
It bothers white people that there are culture norms and practices they can't understand, that leave them as outsiders. As silly as it sounds, many of them are jealous that minorities have victim card status. Trust me, brown and black folks would trade that never-expiring victim card for white folks' power and status in society. Being forever labeled a victim, or not deserving isn't as fun as it looks.
Besides, if the nigga debate were ever settled and the word was somehow banned from the lexicon, look at the damage it would make within my immediate music world.
- No Dead Nigga Blvd Pt I and II from Me'Shell N'Degeocello (No longer do I blame others for the way we be/'Cause niggas need to redefine what it means to be free)
- No Mr. Nigga from Mos Def; (Now who is the cat at Armani buying wears?/With the tourists who be asking him, do you work here?/Mr. Nigga, Nigga, Nigga)
- No Nigga Witta Gun from Dre; (Who is the man with the masterplan? A Nigga Witta muthafuckin' gun!)
It would also mean the banishment of one of the greatest phrases ever uttered in cinema. It comes from the movie, "Bamboozled," one of Spike Lee's best films. It goes:
"Niggas is a beautiful thannnggggg...."
1 comment:
And there'd be no "Boondocks," either. I love Aaron McGruder. He even manages to get under the skin of white liberals, and he does it with perfectly legitimate points, which I love.
Aaron (yeah, we're on a first-name basis) once said he absolutely agreed with Flip Wilson when he said, "I reserve the right to be a nigga."
But there is something I've got to call to your attention, and that's ignorant white folks who use "nigga" anyway, in public, without a second though, namely because they've never spent any time around black folks who told them not to, and they think we're supposedly past all that "racial stuff."
I'm not just talking about Paris Hilton. I'm talking ghetto-ass white folks, trailer-park white folks, etc. They don't use it in a deliberately derogative way, but they still use it to address each other, and it still makes me wince.
I don't think any of them should use it. But does that mean there's a nigga usage quota for people like me? Do I only get to use it half as much?
Then I wonder how I can support one double standard and sort of break another. I mean, I freely use the words fag, bulldyke, rugmuncher, etc, as a straight person. But I've been absorbed and accepted by the gay community. I'm a proud fag-hag. But under the logic I just said I supported, as a straight, I really have no business saying those things. :-( Then again, I don't get bent out of shape when a queen calls me bitch, so maybe it all balances out.
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