"You Somebody's Nigga, In That Nigga Tie"

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...."

RIP Nigga, Forever to Forever

And there lies the word nigga.

The NAACP made national news by symbolically burying the word nigga (or nigger), which is the age-old organization's way of trying to get black folks to stop using the word.

OK, let me tell on myself a bit because, to me, the only way you can offer any real, honest commentary about the word, nigga, is if you 'fess up about how the word plays out in your own life.

I use the word. Am I proud of it? Not really. I use it among friends. I can't recall a time I've used it in front of white people. My guess is that my experience and use of the word not unlike the majority of black people. Most black people of my generation feel that we've "earned" the word through various abuses and discriminations. Older black people, like my grandmother's age, hate the word with a passion. If you said nigga to my uncle, he'd cut your ass from end to end. I notice -- and it alarms me -- that younger black people use the word in front of everybody. Actually, young whites, Asians and Latinos do, too. If Fif-dee uses it, they use it.

As much as I realize it's not entirely right for black people to use nigga, I wonder if I'm being duplicitious because I feel that a) white people or anyone else that isn't black should never use it and b) its usage in the black community is something that should be decided by us. No one else.

One thing that bothered me during the Imus controversy was that the social agenda in the black community was being set by white people -- and I don't know if it was "their place" to tell us anything.

Mainstream media and most whites generally don't care about the issues and problems facing the black community. I'm not saying they mean us harm. But it makes sense that they wouldn't care. One advantage of being in the mainstream is having the culture fall in-step to how you think and feel. And when problems don't adversely affect your community, how can you care as much as the people it does affect?

For example, generally speaking, the issues affecting Latinos aren't in my personal vortex. Of course, I don't want to see other races discriminated against or go through some of the suffering that has affected minority groups as a whole. But I'm guilty of being as ethnocentric as anyone else.

It seems the only time white folks want to be in the discussion of the issues affecting Negroes is when it exonerates their white privilege. And maybe that's why this NAACP thing bothers me so much. Is this really about burying nigga? Or is this about proving credible to white people in the post-Imus climate?

Don't get me wrong, black people need to be personally responsible for a lot of things. The time for blaming white people for all our problems needs to have its own headstone next to nigga. But my gut tells me the NAACP didn't do this for the right reasons. They did this for publicity. They did this to show that Negroes were capable of taking personal responsibility.

Trust me, words are not what is destroying the black community. It's lack of education, dilipidation of the inner cities, poor health, crime, etc. I can think of 35 things affecting Negroes far worse than hip-hop and nigga, which have become convenient targets and buzz words to use to excuse the institutional racism still prevalent in this country.

As my man Talib Kweli said on the Today show duing the Imus ruckus, "But what about that white skin privilege 'doh?"

Fact is, black people may have expanded the use of nigga, but they didn't create the word and if every black person vows never to use it again, its usage won't stop. I am amused by white people who say with the straightest of faces that if we use nigga, they should be using it, too. I may say nigga, but I at least have the common sense to feel somewhat ashamed of it. I at least know that's a term not to be uttered in mixed company.

Besides, it's funny how the mainstream is able to, quite easily, distinguish how, when and to whom certain words should be used. I'm sure white guys hear women call each other bitches and sluts (in jest) all the time. But they know, unless they're rarin' for a fight, that they shouldn't call a woman that. I've heard gay people use the word "fag" affectionately in my presence, but I wouldn't dare pretend to have the cultural credit to use that word to another gay person. Even if we were mad cool. I've heard Mexicans use the word spic. And common sense has taught me that if I use that and catch an ass whuppin', it's my own damn fault.

Bottom line: I'm torn about nigga. There is a part of me that welcomes its burial. But then there is the part of me that wonders, well, would that mean songs like Mos Def's "Mr. Nigga" wouldn't exist? After all, nigga has been used creatively, to make salient points. The nigga in me feels as if, yeah, you damn right we've earned the right to use that word however we see fit. But I also don't want to give anyone an easy excuse -- even one as weak as, well they say it too! -- to degrade us.

Look, I'm diminishing my use of nigga as I get older and am trying to weed it out of my vocabularly. It's just that when I see shit like a burial for a word, I can only think of one phrase to sum up my feelings.

Nigga please!