An honest dialogue about love, life, and everything in-between...

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Nigger is still Nigger

11:45 PM |

I don't give a damn how you spell it....

So I was thinking today about our need to try and "take the sting" out of many derogatory words/phrases. Re-orient, reclaim, re-write the meaning. In some ways owning it. My question is why? For example:

Why is it so important for black people to own the word nigger? Why must we put rules on who can say it and who can't? Regardless of who says it and how it's said it still means NIGGER. Why is it important for us to take ownership of a word that was used to degrade, belittle and dehumanize our people? No matter how many times you say it, no matter how ebonically incorrect you spell the shit it's still nigger. But that's not the conversation I'm trying to have here.

Ladies, bitch and hoe are not terms of endearment. Why on earth would you want to considered a female dog. A dog? Really? "Man's best friend". If you look at what a dog's positive traits are supposed to be: loyal, faithful, obedient..that's exactly opposite of what a bitch is supposed to mean. And hoe...aka whore...meaning 'you'll do something strange for a little piece of change' (thank you Mike Epps). Get real. There are too many rules on how you can say these words, what context, who can say it, who can't, "she don't know me like that to be callin me no...", what tone of voice can be used..blah, blah, blah....

Overall I hear this argument of taking over the use of these derrogatory words in effort to take the hateful meaning out of it. Essentially removing the power from these words. However I think in our effort to remove the hate from these words we are created generations who are racially, socially, culturally insensitive. I think this misguided effort has taken it from: these are hurtful words, don't say them, they mean this to..who cares if you say them, it's just words, you know I didn't mean it like that. This is why you have people putting "ghetto names" beside black people in yearbooks, drunken frat boys dressing up in black face for parties, hanging nooses in high school courtyards and not understanding why that was not ok.

I guess what I'm saying is that words, phrases, terms all have meaning. It doesn't matter who says it, how it's said, the underlying meaning of those words are still there. We should always be concious of how we use these words. That goes for bitch, hoe, faggot, "that's ghetto" (cringe), the ever increasingly popular "that's gay" and all others. Until we do, we are secretly say it's ok for reporters to refer to a politicians wife as a "baby mama" and excusing all other infractions. It's not that I'm being an overly sensitive liberal (Fox news can kiss my ass). It's not that I can't take a joke. Bottom line: it's not ok. Point blank. Period. Get concious and step your dialogue game up.



1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Word. Thank you.

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