Will the death of the n-word really kill off its popularity?
A funeral will be held this summer in Detroit but no one will be laid to rest. The funeral will not be in memory of any particular person, but for one of the most controversial and over used racial slurs in the U.S., the n-word.
This summer the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will be holding a symbolic funeral in hopes to end the use of the word that has been in much debate for many years.
The funeral follows months after the Don Imus 'nappy headed hoes' comment toward the Rutgers women's basketball team created furious media frenzy. Although Imus never used the n-word, his comments brought serious racial tension and questioning of the first amendment and freedom of speech.
NAACP National Youth & College Division Director Stefanie L. Brown addressed the need to cease the word in an article from The Washington Times, "As African-American people with a proud heritage and promising destiny, we have to respect ourselves and stop disrespecting each other," said Brown. "The time has come for us to stop using and responding to derogatory words."
After he was fired from MSNBC and his CBS radio show, Imus struggled to defend himself by claiming that hip-hop artists "defame and demean black women" and call them "worse names than I ever did."
The finger had now been turned to the world of hip-hop and Russell Simmons was first to speak for the best of both sides. A few weeks later, the hip-hop mogul called for the music industry to ban three words from the clean versions of rap songs: "b***h," "ho" and the n-word.
On Saturday, April 27, nearly 400 people attended a panel held at the University of Chicago to discuss the question, "Does Hip-Hop Hate Women?" The panel criticized Simmons for doing little in supporting his claim.
According to AP, Joan Morgan, an author on hip-hop and feminism and many others are saying that those three words are already bleeped out of clean versions of rap songs.
Maybe Simmons was trying to help out the situation and defend the hip-hop culture, but it's not enough to make a valid statement. Even if certain words on the radio are hidden with a loud beep or scrape of a record, the meaning behind it is still there.
In 2005, Kanye West's 2005 'Gold Digger' was the biggest hit of the year inciting sing-a-longs in clubs, weddings, bar mitzvah and just about everywhere else. Even grandmas were singing, "Now I ain’t sayin' she a gold digger, but she ain't messin' wit no broke niggaz."
Yeah it was a catchy song, but one of the ugliest words in the American language was in the center of it all.
As long as Grammy award winning, Time magazine sporting, Jesus-loving, Fendi-logo- shaved-into-his-head-for-big-bucks non-gansta type such as Kanye West uses the word in a non-threatening way than nobody gets hurt.
Blacks could say the n-word as much as they wanted and whites could practically say it, as long as they 'had a black friend' or changed the "er" to an "a".
Yes, it was all honky dory with the n-word in the media.... until Michael "Kramer" Richards galloped around the laugh factory like a monkey on crank viciously attacking some black men in the audience.
We probably will never see Richards again since the colossal avalanche of criticism and disgust has wiped away whatever was left of his career, but the outlandish remarks left questioning about who can say what, who has the right, what's funny, what's not blah blah blah and six months later here we are again.
What is the moral of the story? Who the hell knows...
It's not until a nervous, wrinkly old white dude says a racial slur to open the black communities' eyes to what's really going.
Black or White, nobody wins. We're all to blame and making the word 'our own' may never get anyone to stop the use.
-p.s. I wrote this blog a month ago and I'm a bit late posting it but the event hasn't happened yet so there. :)
This summer the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will be holding a symbolic funeral in hopes to end the use of the word that has been in much debate for many years.
The funeral follows months after the Don Imus 'nappy headed hoes' comment toward the Rutgers women's basketball team created furious media frenzy. Although Imus never used the n-word, his comments brought serious racial tension and questioning of the first amendment and freedom of speech.
NAACP National Youth & College Division Director Stefanie L. Brown addressed the need to cease the word in an article from The Washington Times, "As African-American people with a proud heritage and promising destiny, we have to respect ourselves and stop disrespecting each other," said Brown. "The time has come for us to stop using and responding to derogatory words."
After he was fired from MSNBC and his CBS radio show, Imus struggled to defend himself by claiming that hip-hop artists "defame and demean black women" and call them "worse names than I ever did."
The finger had now been turned to the world of hip-hop and Russell Simmons was first to speak for the best of both sides. A few weeks later, the hip-hop mogul called for the music industry to ban three words from the clean versions of rap songs: "b***h," "ho" and the n-word.
On Saturday, April 27, nearly 400 people attended a panel held at the University of Chicago to discuss the question, "Does Hip-Hop Hate Women?" The panel criticized Simmons for doing little in supporting his claim.
According to AP, Joan Morgan, an author on hip-hop and feminism and many others are saying that those three words are already bleeped out of clean versions of rap songs.
Maybe Simmons was trying to help out the situation and defend the hip-hop culture, but it's not enough to make a valid statement. Even if certain words on the radio are hidden with a loud beep or scrape of a record, the meaning behind it is still there.
In 2005, Kanye West's 2005 'Gold Digger' was the biggest hit of the year inciting sing-a-longs in clubs, weddings, bar mitzvah and just about everywhere else. Even grandmas were singing, "Now I ain’t sayin' she a gold digger, but she ain't messin' wit no broke niggaz."
Yeah it was a catchy song, but one of the ugliest words in the American language was in the center of it all.
As long as Grammy award winning, Time magazine sporting, Jesus-loving, Fendi-logo- shaved-into-his-head-for-big-bucks non-gansta type such as Kanye West uses the word in a non-threatening way than nobody gets hurt.
Blacks could say the n-word as much as they wanted and whites could practically say it, as long as they 'had a black friend' or changed the "er" to an "a".
Yes, it was all honky dory with the n-word in the media.... until Michael "Kramer" Richards galloped around the laugh factory like a monkey on crank viciously attacking some black men in the audience.
We probably will never see Richards again since the colossal avalanche of criticism and disgust has wiped away whatever was left of his career, but the outlandish remarks left questioning about who can say what, who has the right, what's funny, what's not blah blah blah and six months later here we are again.
What is the moral of the story? Who the hell knows...
It's not until a nervous, wrinkly old white dude says a racial slur to open the black communities' eyes to what's really going.
Black or White, nobody wins. We're all to blame and making the word 'our own' may never get anyone to stop the use.
-p.s. I wrote this blog a month ago and I'm a bit late posting it but the event hasn't happened yet so there. :)
Labels: In the news
posted by Alexis Gray at
11:23 AM
4 Comments:
It doesn't matter which word it is, if it's root is hateful, it's meaning always will be, regardless of the context. To say only one group may use one word only furthers it's discriminatory purposes. Perhaps instead of screaming a protest whenever the wrong person using the wrong word, people should say "NO" to any such language. By refusing to accept hateful speech in any form, maybe we can change something.
Also, what is interesting about these types of situations is that they always fade away and then reappear as if it's the first time such a controversy has ever occured. Change comes gradually in this case. But the media tends to escalate one instance of racist language, then drop it after it's run it's course, and then act as if the next case is the first. It's funny how the Imus case was painted all over the news but this funeral you mentioned...I've only seen it here. I only heard mention of the hip-hop debate on NPR, and even then it was minimal.
This society needs to step up and refuse to accept hateful speech everyday. Not when sporadic newscasts tell it to.
Will the Pro Basketball player STOP using the N word or is it ok for them because they can dunk.
Come on get real!!!
No, unfortunately the athletes represent the same idea. They feel they have as much reason to use the word as hip-hop artists etc. I feel that as blacks we feel we can use the word and it’s a way to throw back into the faces of those who put it in our face for so many years. A bit redundant? Of course, but what really makes any sense anymore?
And back to Lisha's comment, yes the press on the funeral was very minimal. I haven't heard much about it since. We are a society of conflict not compromise. We are action oriented and what makes more news is more important. Ex.) The Paris Hilton big jail frenzy on the same day as the shuttle Atlantis, what do you remember more about June 8th 2007?
It always saddens me when I see a black person using the N word. The same word that has been used to oppress our race is the same word we are using against each other? Also it is not right for any individual of any race group to use any deregatory term or hateful words towards other of the same race or of a different race group.
I always wonder if instead of Imus it was Snoop or other rapers who made those comments, will it have the same result has it had for Imus? We shouldn't condemn someone for what we do all the time towards ourself.
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