(ThyBlackMan.com) What sickens me about the black community is that most of us still claim to be niggas. When in fact we are not niggas. A lot of people may have convinced us that nigga is different than nigger; that they have different meanings. When that cannot be further from the truth. Calling any black person a nigga, is the same as calling them a nigger. No matter the circumstances, I am well aware that everyone says nigga but, that does not make it okay to call anyone that, and it is not okay for anyone to say it. We have all heard that nigga means homie, which is an understatement, in fact, nigga does not mean homie and if I were to pull out a dictionary, homie is a synonym for gang member. Now, without thinking, black people are profiled as gang members quite often, most people will see a “gang” of black men and call them niggas.
While on the topic of dictionaries, there is this word, niggard, which means to be stingy, cheap, selfish, and ungenerous; also, one not to be trusted. But, that is besides the point. Nigga is the same as nigger and here is how, for one nigga came from the racist term nigger, and when white folks back then was beating, lynching, and raping our brotha’s and sistah’s, I’m sure they were not referring to nigga as their homie. They were to referring to their slave or someone less than. I cannot stress this enough, a nigger is a slave, because that is what our oppressors named us. If the term nigga came from nigger, and nigger means a slave, then what does that make an individual when he or she claims they are a nigga? When you refer to your man
as nigga, you are disrespecting him as a black man whether you or him realize it or not. And, when black men refer to their friends or family as a nigga, he is demoralizing his own. Although, that was the point of calling Africans niggers, niggas, or the worlds personal favorite, “homie“, that does not mean as black men and black women we should keep that burden alive.
When our grandparents were being called niggas, it was to hurt them, it was to make them feel less than, maybe no more than a slave? Now, our community likes to claim it is taking away their power by claiming ourselves and our children even, to be niggas. I believe we are using reverse psychology wrong. As a black individual or maybe a nigga to you, I’ve thought about this and how that even makes sense. Are we the black community really taking their power away, by using the term, nigga, when we are still oppressed? Are we as niggas, taking their power away when they are still locking us up? Taking young fathers and throwing them in cages, killing young fathers, leaving their families with heavy hearts. Are we as niggas, taking their power away when our children are still being misguided, miss-educated, and demoralized, not to mention suffering, in the educational system? Are we as niggas taking their power away when they are still stripping us of our culture? As a nigga, I can go on forever with these questions. But, I am not a nigga, you are not a nigga, we are not niggas. Otherwise, how do you expect us to progress as a race if we are claiming to be slaves, I mean niggers, I’m sorry, I mean niggas?
For the individuals that love bringing up hip hop and rappers, before I make a statement on that I’d like to ask, is the term really okay to say or claim when you have to come up with reasons why it is okay to distribute such a derogatory term. For the individuals that say sorry when they realize they have said the n word in front of a black person, why is it in the first place that you apologize to them? Could it be because you realize that you are wrong? But, later when no black folks are around you will say the n word and your justification for that is because rappers say it in their songs. Has anyone told you not to be a follower or to simply think for yourself? Well there goes your warning, think for yourself.
To address such remedial reasoning, it is indeed a fact that they pay a couple of rappers to sell the term nigga to the youth as a positive thing, that is also how you make something socially acceptable. By paying entertainers to stand by something and promote it to in the media; it is propaganda by testimony or propaganda through bandwagon. Most of us have seen the quote of 2PAC claiming that we are going to take the word nigga and make it a positive thing, by making it our own word. With that same analogy of taking the power away from our oppressors when calling us niggas; we have adopted the term and somehow convinced ourselves that we won’t be offended by their racism because we are niggas and that is now a positive thing. On whose terms and conditions?
Convincing ourselves that the term nigga is different than nigger because it means homie is one way to demoralize yourself and the community. You justifying the term nigga means homie, then the next, you use the term to generalize all black men, why lie to yourself? Because, it is socially acceptable coming from sellout rappers? Whom benefit off of you but lack to rehabilitate our community? We as the black community need to step in front of this problem and stop degrading ourselves and think for ourselves. To stop molding our youths mindsets with dehumanizing tactics. Letting the media control their and our thoughts is only going to dig us in a deeper hole than we are already in.
The youth deserves a better, healthier, and wealthier community but how are we going to accomplish that if we believe we are just some niggas? Do you believe we will start progressing when we start to think highly of ourselves? Do you believe that as long as we are claiming to be niggas that we will gain power that way? That as niggas, we could build upon economics and gain true freedom from our oppressors? One last thing, to believe that calling someone a nigga is different from calling them a nigger, that is like saying, calling someone gay is different than calling them a faggot. A lot of people respect the LGBTQ Community, by not using the term faggot, so where is that same respect for the Black Community?
Staff Writer; Nena Soldaat
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