BMX-NY (10-1-2010): How Wrong Is Long? Why We Can't Wait

During Friday's Black Men's Xchange-New York dialogue, participants considered our relationship to the word
Nigga'

Rapper Nas At A Previous Grammys Award Show

Among questions taken up were:

Where does Nigga' come from?
"As one who's worked in the public education system for twenty years I'm aware of the theories about it, but I've become desensitized to it."

"When I was a Nigga', it meant acceptance [to me.]...'Oh, you a real Nigga'...It was used all the time in my house...I learned that, as I used it, there was acceptance...I didn't realize that, with it, came all kind of behaviors [I didn't like]..."

"With the 'a' spelling...the slur...it means a lazy, shiftless, incompetent person...the alleged 'tem of endearment'...they use it like 'brother,' or 'man'... You're a real man..."

"[By now] It's almost like a place-holder in the conversation...like zero......a place-holder...It has no value...like, 'Um'...like, 'like'...'My brother'...'My friend'...'My lover'...I've become desensitized to it..."

{Facilitator asked: "What was the meaning of it's original usage?"} "Slaves..." "Africans..." "Property..." {Facilitator asked: How were the enslaved Africans valued in relationship to other people?} "As sub-human..." "[As] 3/5 of a man..."

"It wasn't so prevalent when I was coming up in the projects...How did it become so prevalent?"

"Through commercialization...Through the music...We only heard it when my uncles were coming back from the war...My grandmother used to say, 'Don't talk like that in this house'...It was used more in secret..."

{The facilitator said: "Always...Sometimes...or Never. How many among us feel as if it's appropriate, or okay to use the term all the time, or anytime?" [A quarter of the group raised their hands.] "How many feel as if it's appropriate, or okay to use the term some of the time?" [Half the group raised their hands.] "How many feel as if it's never okay to use the term?" [A quarter of the group raised their hands.]}

"Sometimes, as a swear word...I will say it out of the side of my mouth sometimes...'Nigga', please'...Or, as a joking, sly reference to something which is bullshit..."

"I never heard the word until I came to this country from the Bahamas...I cam to Georgia when I was seventeen...We use[d] the term Ngas [meaning] the ancient Dravidians ...the Serpent Gods...The Dravidians...Buddhists in Tibet still refer to us as Ngas...[it's] metaphysical...I've never used [Nigga']...I've been here for twenty years..."

"Context for me marks [the] appropriateness...In quoted literature...In my house, we didn't talk about it...It was just understood...You didn't use the word...I tried to embrace it...[With] Richard Pryor...Nikki Giovanni had a poem I loved [in which she used it]... The Last Poets..."

How, if at all, might Nigga' factor in our identity as men? "Sometimes it is used as [a means of] bonding...I don't think it's loving...I think it's militant...When I first heard NWA's "I'm A Nigga' for Life," I loved it!...I thought, 'That's right, I'm down with that person...It's used to convey a sense of militancy by young adults, male and female...meaning, we're down... we hang together...I like it because it means we're not going to swallow anybody else's [perspective]...A real Nigga' is a real man..."

"I raised my hand for, 'Always,' because I feel as if, what have we come to if we can't use the word...I need the freedom to write...To be able to use the word...To use all words...I sometimes ask my students, 'What do you think that is not in contrast to what white people have thought about it?'...I've given all this power to a word that all these people have used...Where are we getting that we are now scared of words?... Our use [of Nigga'] now connotes that we are the owner now, and not the slave..."

{Facilitator asked: "So, that is what is meant by the notion, 'We're taking the power back from the word?"} "Yes." {What did you mean when you asked your students, 'What do you think that is not in contrast to what white people have thought about it?'} "We're using these words to try and mean something...I am not my thoughts...[I sometimes use it to reflect] that's crazy stuff...I went to jail...I've gotten to be a Nigger...[At one point] the guard said...'Walk over there, Niggers'...And we walked..."

{Facilitator said: "So, the word is the same...Do you remember the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the document in which we are cited as 3/5 of a human being?...It was a fairly simple clause stating, 'There shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except...'...What was the exception?"
"Where somebody is convicted..."
"Yes, where someone is convicted of a crime and incarcerated...So, when someone is incarcerated, what does it mean?"
"That they can be a slave..."
"Not that they can be a slave, but that they are a slave... And, that's the law of the land to this very day...So, we've come full circle...Nigga' meant slave then, and Nigga' means slave now."}

"The ancient Nagasaki who built the ancient Pyramids in China were Black..."

"It's a word...It's a word...And at the end of the day, it has the power you imbue it with..."

"Unless there is a static language...The French try to keep their language static, [such that] there are no bastardizations [of the meanings of their words]...We've never dealt with race in America [in such a way as to unpack the implications of words}"

Hip-Hop's Influence of the "N" Word In
Lilongwe, Malawi (Africa)

Can we really' take the power back' from Nigger by adding an 'a?'
"It still has the power to hurt, to humiliate, to subjugate...Does it have the power to heal, to rehabilitate...The power lies in the purpose...the intention..."

If there is really no harm in it, then why is a white man's uttering it taboo, or offensive?
{[In response to this question, a few men look askance as if in disbelief. Looking at one, the]Facilitator asked: "If a white man said, Nigger, sit your ass down! How do you think you'd respond?" [The man winced, and laughed at himself for wincing.] To another, the Facilitator said: "Nigger, stand aside." [The men agree they'd be outraged.]}

How is it we are the only people who use an epithet coined to dehumanize us as a "term of endearment?"
"There is a profit in being a victim..."

"The Jews keep holding up their having been slaughtered to make people feel bad..."

{Facilitator said: "It's not so much to make people feel bad as to insure that people never forget, as a warning that it can never happen again..."}

"The Jews didn't have their culture taken away from them..."

{Facilitator said: "That's why the Jews can insist that what was done to them, on other shores can never be do to them again anywhere..."}

"The Jews are estimated to be 1.4% of the population [and yet] they have a lot of power...Gays [are said to be] 3% of the population, and they have a lot of power..."

"They both have a line [a connection] to their heritage [their culture]...it hasn't been broken...The line, the line, the line..."

{Facilitator said: And, that is why it is imperative that we reconnect our line...learn our history and heritage, so that we will be empowered to collectively say, "Never again" also...remembering that we are something other than Nigga'"}

"When you let other people define you, watch out..."

"Abused people often take on the behavior of the abuser...It demonizes the abused...We're calling ourselves the very same name they called us..."

Might there be a connection between Nigga' and Faggot? If so, what is it?
"They are both used to dehumanize people..."

"The one time I still use the word, Nigga' is at the point of orgasm. It's something I'm still working on [removing from my repertoire]..."

"[Maybe] the word(s) have the power to make you feel powerful...Because you become the slave owner [when you use them]...'Take my dick, Nigga'...Take my dick, Faggot..."

{Facilitator said: "Yes, something we don't discuss is, when we were enslaved, the enslavers used us as objects of sexual abuse and of pleasure, just as they did our women..."}

"It came out of our contact with Europeans...[For them] to keep us submissive...When I took [Nigga'] out of my vocabulary, I started attracting better men...[But now] I have to relearn how to like the people I have sex with..."

Should we spark an initiative to curtail the use of the word in our community?
"There's a law somewhere on the books in NY against the use of the word...I don't think it's ever [been] enforced..."

"Media might be a way to turn young people away from using it..."

"There are rappers who don't use the 'N word'..."

"But, they're not getting signed..." "Or played..."

"If we all stand up and say, we're not buying that..."

"I do something I call subway facilitation...We're not a village anymore because we're afraid of our children...[When I hear them intoning the word] I ask them, 'Your Momma and Daddy use that word at home?...They usually say, 'My father's not [at] home'...I tell them, 'Tell [your parents] every time you use that word, you have to give me a dollar...' I had one kid come back and tell me, 'I got ten dollars!'...We can start a new epidemic in the community...if we go out and talk to our children...Children want to be taught and to be disciplined...I know it can be scary, but when one person stands up for something good and right, it gives other people permission to do it..."

{Facilitator said: Tacks I take with children include, asking if they know what it means...Asking if there is anyone who they think is not 'Nigga'...'Is Michelle Obama Nigga'?'...'Is President Obaman Nigga'?'...'Is Martin Luther King...'...Another one I heard Cleo mention the other day I thought was real funny is, when they assert that they've taken back the word's negative power by taking ownership of it; challenging them saying, 'Okay, then, if you can do that, then let's substitute Stank asshole for Nigga', and saying to them...'Wus up, Stank Asshole?'...Or, 'Wus up, my Asshole?'..." [Laughter]}

[What about] a letter-writing campaign to rap artists...There's a website called abolish the 'N word'..."

"But, the rappers don't read it..."

"In the corporate world, they don't use the 'N word,' they say, 'Ghetto'..."

"It's really psychological abuse...Our children have taken on the oppressor's abuse..."

"The last area I'm working on to heal is the intimacy part...I call Adam 4 Adam, and don't like some of what I do [with the men]...Nigga' is also connected to our distorted view of manhood..."

"[Referring to each other as Nigga'] is identity theft..."

"You have to have an identity for it to be able to be taken..."

{Facilitator said: And our calling ourselves Nigga' is alerting the world our identity is flagging...So, in closing, let me ask, over the course of the dialogue, has anyone shifted their perspective?...Their relationship to the word, Nigga'?...And, mind you, there's no law that says anyone's perspective needs to have changed..." [To a man, those who'd said 'Always' and 'Sometimes,' had shifted...]}