This article was originally published on May 13, 2018.
What’s up, my nigga? Long time no see.
What’s up? It’s been a while.
Also, you can’t use that word anymore.
The n-word? But I thought you loved that word.
I do, but it upsets white people.
Why does it upset them so?
Because all lives matter.
I don’t understand. What does that even mean?
Well, when white people created “All Lives Matter,” it had nothing to do with white lives, equality or police brutality. It was created as a response to Black Lives Matter because they felt that the slogan left out white people, and they hate being left out of anything.
Somehow, they believe that anything that doesn’t include them must automatically be anti-white. White people are very fragile in that way, and you should make an effort to be more sensitive to their needs.
But what does that have to do with the n-word?
Just like their cockamamie Black Lives Matter logic, they’ve concocted a convoluted, whitesplained argument that says using the n-word is divisive and an example of reverse racism.
Who the fuck is “they”?
I have no idea. The president of white people, I guess. Or maybe there’s an executive committee. All I know is that it’s all Kendrick Lamar’s fault.
Kendrick Lamar? How is this his fault?
Well, he invited a woman onstage at a recent concert to sing along to one of his songs that contains the n-word, and then stopped the woman when she rapped the n-word to a song that he wrote and invited her onstage to sing.
While I personally believe that no white person should ever be onstage at a rap concert unless they are playing the guitar, adjusting the pyrotechnics or bringing out a bottle of water, this incident reignited the entire debate about white people using the n-word.
There was a debate about this?
Unfortunately, there was. Despite the fact that the NAACP had a funeral for the n-word more than a decade ago, apparently, the n-word rose from the dead and kept blessing us. Apparently, the n-word is Black Jesus.
“Nigga” is a rock in a weary land. Niggas be on the main line telling me what I want. Niggas wept. What a friend we have in ...
OK, I get it! You like the word! But is white people’s argument that they should be able to say it, or that we should stop saying it?
Both.
Some argue that if Black people can say it but white people can’t, then that’s the definition of racism. Some argue that we can’t use the word in our music, sell it to white people and then get mad when Alabama sorority girls use it, Victoria's Secret models sing it in Cardi B lyrics, or Vince Staples tweets it.
And this is not just white people. There are Black people who believe that the n-word should never be used. They say it’s demeaning and that asking white people not to use the word while Black people continue to do so is a double standard.
Some nigga just wrote a whole article about it for Variety.
So what do you believe?
I believe that people should be able to say whatever they want.
I also believe that people should face the consequences for saying whatever they want.
So you’re cool with white people saying “nigger” or “nigga”?
Nope.
I am also not cool with white people putting cranberries in macaroni, but they do it anyway. I know that cran-a-roni and cheese is nasty, and I know that white people who want to use the n-word are racist. When we see it, all we can do is call them anti-macaroni racists.
Black people getting upset about something never stopped white people from doing anything. They are always going to want to use the n-word. I just wish they would stop innocently pretending that they aren’t racist when they use it.
But if white people are racist when they use it, then why isn’t it racist when we use it? Take the woman who was onstage with Kendrick Lamar. How can you call her a racist if she uses the n-word in the same exact context Lamar did? It’s just a song, right?
OK. Suppose you came home one day and found someone naked, asleep, in your bed. Would you be OK with that?
That’s a dumb question. Of course not.
What if they gained entry because you inadvertently left the door unlocked?
I still wouldn’t be cool with it.
OK. Let’s say you invited someone to your house to watch the game. Instead of knocking, they waltzed in through the unlocked door, got naked, took a shit in your bathroom and crawled in your bed. That would be OK, right?
Absolutely not. People really shit in other people’s houses? That’s nasty and disrespectful.
Why? I bet you’ve done it a million times. How are they being disrespectful if they are only doing the same thing you do all the time?
Because it’s my house. Every idiot knows that.
Exactly.
Let’s be honest—there isn’t a white person in America who doesn’t know that the n-word is the most derogatory and racist term anyone can use. Even though some people allege that “straight white male” is the new n-word, there is no equivalent.
Therefore, anyone who uses the word is aware of its racist implications, just as the people who advocate for “All Lives Matter” are aware that it is an attempt to negate the idea that Black lives matter.
If I invite you into my house, I assume you have some common sense or decency. When Lamar invited that white woman onstage, he probably assumed she had the common sense or decency not to blurt out the n-word in a room full of Black people. She didn’t.
It’s our house. It’s our word.
Isn’t that a double standard?
It absolutely is.
But it is either disingenuous or stupid to pretend that double standards don’t exist. If I overheard a woman playfully referring to her best friends as a “bitch,” I wouldn’t think I could refer to that woman in that way. I am not dumb enough to think that I enjoy that privilege.
Words are supposed to have double standards.
Even though I use the n-word a lot, I know it offends some people, Black and white. But unlike some white people, I am also familiar enough with the word to know when and where to use it. I don’t call my Aunt Marvell “my nigga.” I don’t say it on TV or at church. I basically use it as a curse word. “Nigga” is basically my “motherfucker.”
I also use “motherfucker” a lot.
Have you ever heard of people who like to be choked during sex?
Sure.
But if I walked around choking random people, I’d be arrested. Why is it that someone’s significant other can choke them but I can’t?
Because you don’t have consent and their bodies doesn’t belong to you.
Precisely.
This double standard exists because choking people is a violent act that requires a certain relationship and consent between two people. No one has consented to white people’s use of the n-word.
White people used the word as a way to choke Black people for centuries. It is idiotic for them to now pretend to be oblivious to the fact that they used it as a weapon against us for the entire history of this country.
But if wypipo know all of this, as you claim, then why do they want to use the n-word?
Because they have fetishized it. Because they are colonizers. Because they cannot let go of the concept that everything belongs to them. You must remember that white people in America believed that they could claim an entire already populated continent by simply declaring it as their own.
They planted a flag on the moon. The motherfucking moon! You think the n-word is any different?
But you just told me not to use it. Does that mean you’re gonna stop using it?
Nah, nigga. I’m Black.
Nigga is good...
All the time.
And all the time...
Nigga is good.
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Funny and insightful. The double standard point was eloquently made and there are words that other ethnic groups use to refer to each other as terms of endearment that would be insults coming from other people. The n-word is no different. I not only refrain from using the word around people who are not Black, I will not use it around Black people who are not members of my immediate family, bascially my wife and children who are all adults. I feel that the N-word is the linguistic equivalent of AI. Everyone thinks that they can control how it is used, but the quickly find out - as Kendrick did in the example you used - that they cannot.
They will argue this point until they're blue in the face. It's sad, really.