Re: The 'N' word in Hip-Hop

Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 07:35:39 -0400 (EDT)
Newsgroups: rec.music.hip-hop
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DefJux85 asks:
<<But when Hispanics say it, it's okay. (As a matter of fact, I'm seeing
more and more Hispanics use it). J.Lo said it in a song with Ja Rule and
I heard she got in trouble for it. Asians are saying it too but not
much. So do African Americans get offended when a certain race says it,
or certain people?>>
(required reading: "Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word",
by Randall Kennedy)
Here's the deal as I see it: unfortunately we blacks are hypocritical
when it comes to the N-word. So much so, that now "nigga" is a "term of
endearment". The Hispanic community in the Bronx(from what I've heard)
has always used the term with no problem, but J.Lo did a
"cross-over"(read: white folks) so she may have lost her pass to all the
critics and lay-people jumped on it. Eminem, who wants to bury his
mother, kill his ex-wife, and "piss the world off" amazingly says that
"that word isn't even in my vocabulary". Dare I say that he KNOWS the
ramifications of using such a taboo-like word in a lyric. See, Benzino
can call him a "cave man" or a "cracker" and it's cool. Let Marshall
retort with, "Ray, my gun's bigger/got my finger on the trigger/your
whole crew's gone/just a bunch of dead niggas". And see how BET, ETV,
this medium, and all other sources of information put the "nail in the
coffin" towards him. We blacks have tried to take the sting out of the
term by sprucing it up and being the exclusive "keepers" of the term.
This confuses some whites and others who want to "understand"(or market)
the black experience. PEACE!