Nigga, what?

How do you feel about black people using the N-word, flipped around as a casual acknowledgment or term of endearment, while simultaneously taking offensive to non black people using any version (..."er" or "a")?

If you're black, do YOU personally use that word to mean friend or buddy?

I guess it's the same as women who gleefully refer to themselves as bitches "the baddest bitch"..."HBIC". Gays do it too. Plenty playfully call their gay friends fags. I know alot of groups that have flippantly taken slurrish words and defanged them. I don't how right or wrong it is, but it's just something that happens I guess!

stonestatic wrote:I guess it's the same as women who gleefully refer to themselves as bitches "the baddest bitch"..."HBIC". Gays do it too. Plenty playfully call their gay friends fags. I know alot of groups that have flippantly taken slurrish words and defanged them. I don't how right or wrong it is, but it's just something that happens I guess!

I'm going to co-sign.

I'm not Thugnificent, every word out of my mouth isn't nigga this and nigga that....and I understand why some black folks dislike the general use of the term as one of endearment....but at the same time though, I don't go out of my way to AVOID saying it either. Every now and then it might casually slip out of my mouth. I don't see it as that big a deal. I don't glorify the word, but I don't have a phobia of it either.

I hardly ever use that word. It may slip out from time to time but it's definitely not apart of my everyday vernacular. And I find it despicable when I hear such gratuitous use of the word used by young and non black people.

I'm sure many already know this, but I will reiterate it anyway:

During the Civil Rights Movement, the term Nigga was initially used by Blacks as an in-house slur toward other Blacks to shame those who were perpetuating an [negative] image that was counterproductive to the movement. It was taking the traditional N-word and altering it just slightly, as if to say "You are behaving like how the White man sees you as." It wasn't supposed to be cute. It was intended to be a wakeup call. Then somewhere along the line, probably during the late '60s/early '70s (when Black folks started feeling socially liberated for the first time), it got arbitrarily twisted into a 'homie' sentiment. Why? I don't know.

Me personally, I Chris Rock's "Black Folks versus Nigga's" breakdown. Nigga's do exist, can't pretend that they don't. I use the word, but as it was originally intended. I don't refer to anyone I have affection or respect for as one. That thirty year old man, who lives with his momma, only barely holds down a part time job, smokes weed, dates hoodrat chicks, and thinks nothing of playing deejay to the whole neighborhood with this loud ass stereo is a Nigga.

Nystyle709 wrote:. And I find it despicable when I hear such gratuitous use of the word used by young and non black people.

I agree. I find it revolting to have to explain it to non AA's and I'm half white myself.

I don't think the word should be used and I think that needs to be an across the board thing. If it's okay for some people to use it and not others, then there's hypocrisy. If the word itself is offensive, it shouldn't be used at all by anyone.

Nhaiyel wrote:I'm sure many already know this, but I will reiterate it anyway:

During the Civil Rights Movement, the term Nigga was initially used by Blacks as an in-house slur toward other Blacks to shame those who were perpetuating an [negative] image that was counterproductive to the movement. It was taking the traditional N-word and altering it just slightly, as if to say "You are behaving like how the White man sees you as." It wasn't supposed to be cute. It was intended to be a wakeup call. Then somewhere along the line, probably during the late '60s/early '70s (when Black folks started feeling socially liberated for the first time), it got arbitrarily twisted into a 'homie' sentiment. Why? I don't know.

It's kind of like the word 'pimp', today people think it's a compliment or a good thing, 'dude you be pimping that', 'pimp my ride', but back in Billy the Kid's time, it was an offensive enough word that men shot each other over being called it.

I don't use it and I don't like to hear anyone else use it.

Athough I'm a person of color, white but I turn blue when I'm cold, red when I'm hot or angry and yellow if my liver is acting up, I wouldn't ever dream of using that word. Although if a person acts like one I will call them a niggard.