Who else here besides me freuqnetly uses the 'n-word' (as in niggas/niggaz)? BE HONEST!

[shoot that beast]

Supposedly I've been saying niggas/niggaz since I was like five, so needless to say, we know each other quite well. I've went through several nigga-less periods (when I didn't utter nigga or call people niggas) but I always end up back 'home' sooner or later. They were when hurricane Katrina struck and when Obama won the presidency, but then while I was watching the inauguration, I go so excited and was like 'that's my nigga Obama; Nigbama!!!' in a room with senior citizens and a few kids (sad I know).... So people who used to say 'nigga' a lot, how'd you stop or cut it down? It's like, saying 'nigga' completes me or something...lol.

[Golem_3]

hey, Cali-
true story, I was on the floor ROLLIN when Abiodun Oyewole (1/2 of The Last Poets) told me about his legal battle with N.W.A.
I used to go over to Abiodun's house every Sunday, eat salmon cakes and smoke that ganja.
Anyway.....
N.W.A. had a song called "Real Niggaz Don't Die". They used a sample of The Last Poets saying "DIE NIGGA!"
Abiodun was telling me "we weren't even gonna do nothing about it. But then, Dr. Dre wanna start yellin, right after our sample, 'Ima muthafuckin nigga!' So, we were like 'sheeiiit, we gotta sue them now.' Me and Hassan were talkin about being straight-up! Cut that self-destructive shit out."
"All these rappers look up to me, but like I told Busta, dontchu know all these White folks want y'all to do is act like a FUCKIN FOOL?! They eat that shit up. We coonin & shit, and they just sittin back, gettin rich off of us. We make something or do whatever, and they're like 'go on...do it again! I don't wanna give...them...SHIT. Like, take this one time, for example... I was eating at Sylvia's restaurant. This White lady looks at the menu and asks 'whats a smothered chicken?' Brotha,.... you don't know how bad I wanted to go into that kitchen, get a chicken, throw it on her plate, put a pillow over its head, and say... 'thats a smothered chicken."

[Rosenda]

Thanks for sharing that Golem. That rocks!

Golem_3 said:

hey, Cali-
true story, I was on the floor ROLLIN when Abiodun Oyewole (1/2 of The Last Poets) told me about his legal battle with N.W.A.
I used to go over to Abiodun's house every Sunday, eat salmon cakes and smoke that ganja.
Anyway.....
N.W.A. had a song called "Real Niggaz Don't Die". They used a sample of The Last Poets saying "DIE NIGGA!"
Abiodun was telling me "we weren't even gonna do nothing about it. But then, Dr. Dre wanna start yellin, right after our sample, 'Ima muthafuckin nigga!' So, we were like 'sheeiiit, we gotta sue them now.' Me and Hassan were talkin about being straight-up! Cut that self-destructive shit out."
"All these rappers look up to me, but like I told Busta, dontchu know all these White folks want y'all to do is act like a FUCKIN FOOL?! They eat that shit up. We coonin & shit, and they just sittin back, gettin rich off of us. We make something or do whatever, and they're like 'go on...do it again! I don't wanna give...them...SHIT. Like, take this one time, for example... I was eating at Sylvia's restaurant. This White lady looks at the menu and asks 'whats a smothered chicken?' Brotha,.... you don't know how bad I wanted to go into that kitchen, get a chicken, throw it on her plate, put a pillow over its head, and say... 'thats a smothered chicken."

[kifaru]

That poem is so gangsta that I can't stand it!!! What the fuck didn't happened to us that now we still need here this again and have it decsribe our situation in this day and time as well as it did at the time it was created.

[Rhinos Have More Fun]

jaydubnb said:

Bro, homie, dude---all acceptable substitutes.

Latinos usually say "fool"--that always cracks me up.

[Rhinos Have More Fun]

We were raised not to say it in my family, although I know for a fact that a few relatives on both sides have been known to let the word slip every now and then... I've used it occasionally, even as recently as three years ago. But I've come to the conclusion that the only sensible behavior regarding that word is to show by example: when Black rappers make recordings, selling millions of copies that gratuitously use the word, we shouldn't be suprised when people from other races think that it's fine.

And my thing is that it might be fine for SOME people. I'm not one of those people--at least not anymore.

I get fucking SICK and FUCKING TIRED of hearing some 14 year-old, some damn 11 year-old kid tossing around the word like its a hot potato and then he tells ME that it's okay for x, y or z reason when I call him on it. He can barely tell me why he burps and farts after eating pizza and a 6 pack of Coke, so how in the FUCK is he going to try to convince me of the N word's benign nature?? The kid can be Black, Mexican, Samoan, Filipino or Caucasian--my response is always the same: that word is inappropriate for the classroom and it is definitely inappropriate for me. (Yes, Black usage offends me less, but I stick to my rule.)

I got into it a couple of times at the bar: Some woman started throwing the word around in convo with me. The thing is, she was talking to ME, so I'm damn sure going to demand that she respect my personal space. She said she was Colombian (no, she didn't appear to be Black); she had the nerve to insist that it didn't mean what I thought it meant and that she was "Blacker" than I was. Believe me, I went off.

Don't assume that because this or that Black person isn't offended that the next one feels the same way. The next one just might whoop somebody's ass.

[Boudica]

And this thread shall rise again.

I never used to say it, and recently got into the habit of saying it (encouraged by the people I hang around- but I know that isn't really an excuse). @.@; Now, I'm quitting, hopefully cold turkey.

[Sekou]

Dont use it.

said it once when I was 7, my father punched me in the mouth and made me stand in the sun with a chair over my head for 3 hours as punishment. :)

[calvinchaos]

we're already forced to have English as our first language, most of us dont know where we really come from...I don't need to adopt ALL of thier trash. punk rock is crass enough, they can keep nigger

for me, it would be like adopting the Swastika to take the power out of it. if Jews did that it would look stupid to some people, cool to others, same in this case.

If you have been saying it for 40 years like that then by all means keep goin & maybe around the time you die the word will be phased out, no need to worry about it. I laid it down myself. before that word got back popular when Ice T & them blew up, I was in North Carolina for 4 years, where kids would "threaten" you with the KKK if you talked out of turn. we got jumped for the color of our skin by the class mates we had to spend the rest of the year with...all 3 of us. so when I finally moved back to Chicago, I didn't see that shit the same ever again. No matter how long we try and take the word back it's always gonna be trash to me....just like it is to your grandparents.

I don't like being THAT old school and stiff, but I have tried to see it how the young kids do and it didn't work. I adopted it for a few years, still never felt comfortable...not with my memories. when we had Black History in North Carolina you can imagine how awkward it was. the kids would be trying to reinact the shit they just heard about on us...pretty insulting & 3 kids can't beat down a whole school so we did what we could but, scarred for life? yeah I admit I am. The first Black kid who ever called me a nigger was 3 years older than me, and a GD he was just saying whats up & his two brothers was with him. I screamed in his face "what did you call me? I aint no nigger!" & his brothers held us back before my scrawny ass got put in the hospital. that was yet another memory for me to link onto that word, haha. that was my introduction when his brothers explained, that nigger was back popular for us to use, just like back in the 70s.

If you ARE comfortable with it & you're living in the city, it's part of your personal culture go on ahead...I can't co-sign it though. It just reminds me of a lotta bullshit that happened to ancestors, AND how overly awkward, and needlessly ignorant this "melting pot" America is on the subject of race. Fuck this shit, as far as I'm concerned, they can have thier word back...I don't need it. I got plenty of my own.

[calvinchaos]

this country aint exactly subtle with racism on the other hand so when people use shit that's readily available to make you even more uncomfortable, sometimes it can do the trick. we know the history of the civil rights struggle, we see how we can't get normal treatment around other people & sometimes our own because of the color of our skin...then on top of that you got shit like this. trying to isolate & scare you mafia style, all in a group bigger than you can beat down...and why are you in that situation? because you were born with brown skin, nothing to do with your personaltiy. so yeah, I would be a little mad myself, no matter what year it is.

maybe where you live, you never had that problem though...who knows it's a big country.



Golem_3 said:

T-Von said:

After Obama won, racist attacks at my school and the use of the word "nigger" became widely used amongst the white students, taking us right back into the Jim Crow years..and I thought we were moving forward.

ya know, what's so deep is that you would feel like that, yet none of those White students were alive during Jim Crow era (and neither were we).
Thankfully, I've never been around a White person that said "hey, nigger" (because if that were the case, I wouldn't be typing. Atleast not on this side of freedom). I mostly grew up around Blacks and Hispanics.

What to make of our flipping a deragatory word into a term of endearment?
Most of us say its not up to us since we don't control the infrastructure of our society/ western culture.

A sentiment isn't bond until the dominating forces declare it so, it seems.
And yet, Obama is president.
deep

[Laidback Mike]

I'm against any forms of this word.

[Compound Egret]

I Rarely use it, and on those occasions it is usually that internal convo you have with the car radio. That was the worst insult someone could throw at you when I was growing up.

[Rage_Proletaire]

An acquaintance once confided to me that "Sometimes I just wanna say 'nigger'." I totally understand on a certain level; if you've an H-bomb in your pocket (regardless of who put it there, or gave you the means to use it), you'll want to use it at some point, if only to "see what happens."

And I've found myself in many strange situations where people wanted to see what happened. An all-white party at a co-worker's house one night (I was the only black male who showed up): after everyone had gotten sufficiently drunk, they played a David Allen Coe song about a female who "fucked a goddamned nigger", "just to see what I'd do" (someone's actual words). I literally laughed my way through the song, and was subsequently hit on by a co-worker whom I didn't know had any interest in male partners.

(Thanks for the free booze, Leah! The company might've sucked, but I wasn't old enough to buy my own alcohol.)


I use the word all the time, and I don't know if I'll stop. I've been called a "nigger" from passing F-350s numerous times; to those who've actually said it to my face, I've challenged them to come up with something a little more original. So far, no one's collected the prize money.

Not to sound so wholly "Generation O(bama)", but .. yeah, it's what you make of it. Last thing I want to do is give the word more vitriolic properties by being offended. Can't always bring my life to a halt because some sad soul has devoted a little of their time to take something from my love of self. The black race will not offer consolation for defending the honor of the so-called race.

The political landscape isn't what it was when I was born, nor when I was growing up. I don't want my children to see daddy flip out and go to jail at Wal Mart or Whole Foods because someone hurt my feelings. Who wouldn't feel stupid sitting in a cell over that?