5 ms·

I see this often with gangs I grew up around. Black people can call each other niggers in a casual, non-attack way. But as soon as a white person does it, it’s

I see this often with gangs I grew up around. Black people can call each other niggers in a casual, non-attack way. But as soon as a white person does it, it’s racist.

shigawire 4y ago
It means different things coming from different people for very clear historical and cultural reasons. Pretending not to understand this is being willfully ignorant at this point.
- deleted 4y ago
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tzs 4y ago
It will be interesting to see if music changes this. I mostly listen to classical and older pop/rock/folk but recently decided to see what is current and so listened to the entire Billboard Hot 100. There was a lot of rap and hip-hop with lyrics that prominently and repeatedly used that word. I wondered then about what happens when non-Black fans sing along with such a song on radio or streaming or at a concert. I did some research and it seems that a small minority of the artists think that people who sing along should sing all the words regardless of race, with most thinking non-Blacks should not sing that word. Some in the latter group also feel that it is a losing battle to try to stop it. I think those that want to stop it can succeed--for now. If I ever feel the urge for example to sing along to some rap or hip-hop song I'll have no trouble remembering to skip the N-word part. I've long known that this is a word I should not be saying except under special circumstances where it is clear I should say it and that singing along is probably not special circumstances. That works for me because I'm adult and when I learned the word as a kid I learned it as a derogatory term. But now that the N-word is in popular music that plenty of non-Blacks listen to, there will be kids who grow up from the start with that in the music they listen to. It will be a word they naturally learn as part of normal language acquisition without learning the most negative connotations. I bet it will be lot harder to get that generation to not use it when singing alone, or to not adopt it with the positive meanings that it sometime has when used in rap or hip-hop.
- mpfundstein 4y ago
  kendrick lamar is a good example regarding your first example. he has this song, good kid maad city, where nigga is used in about every single sentence. the whole hook is full with it. at a concert, he invited a white girl to rap the song on stage. of course she went full with it. he stopped the track after she rapped nigga a few times during the track l and began to.blame her on stage for it. of course the whole crowd went with it. i mean. what a god damn motherfucker. seriously. i dont want to know what the girl was going through mentally. it must have been horror. the obsession with the n word is crazy anyway. of course i dont use it in mh regular life..but when i quote a rap song, i quote it literally ofc.
akomtu 4y ago
It means "servant" basically, and it's about an apparent difference in social classes. If I ask a barista "you can also mow my lawn if you want to make some money" it's an insult that the barista can't even refute, but if I ask my friend the same, he'll take it as a joke.
sureglymop 4y ago
Because there is a contextual difference! Historical context matters, and saying things like "all lives matter" or "we're all the same (so we should be able to use the same words?)" actually undermine the collective struggle this group of people has had to deal with. Life isn't binary, it's always more complex than that. It's not rational to just do a "reset" at this point in time and say "oh, i have nothing to do with what my predecessors have engaged in, so i can't be held accountable"... because that's not true, the predecessors lives and actions directly affect ones life. I understand that sometimes the direct outrage over something small might seem ridiculous, but at the same time I don't understand why people have such a problem with just not using a certain word. It really isn't hard...

I see this often with gangs I grew up around. Black people can call each other niggers in a casual, non-attack way. But as soon as a white person does it, it’s racist.

shigawire 4y ago

It means different things coming from different people for very clear historical and cultural reasons. Pretending not to understand this is being willfully ignorant at this point.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

tzs 4y ago

It will be interesting to see if music changes this. I mostly listen to classical and older pop/rock/folk but recently decided to see what is current and so listened to the entire Billboard Hot 100. There was a lot of rap and hip-hop with lyrics that prominently and repeatedly used that word. I wondered then about what happens when non-Black fans sing along with such a song on radio or streaming or at a concert. I did some research and it seems that a small minority of the artists think that people who sing along should sing all the words regardless of race, with most thinking non-Blacks should not sing that word. Some in the latter group also feel that it is a losing battle to try to stop it. I think those that want to stop it can succeed--for now. If I ever feel the urge for example to sing along to some rap or hip-hop song I'll have no trouble remembering to skip the N-word part. I've long known that this is a word I should not be saying except under special circumstances where it is clear I should say it and that singing along is probably not special circumstances. That works for me because I'm adult and when I learned the word as a kid I learned it as a derogatory term. But now that the N-word is in popular music that plenty of non-Blacks listen to, there will be kids who grow up from the start with that in the music they listen to. It will be a word they naturally learn as part of normal language acquisition without learning the most negative connotations. I bet it will be lot harder to get that generation to not use it when singing alone, or to not adopt it with the positive meanings that it sometime has when used in rap or hip-hop.

mpfundstein 4y ago
kendrick lamar is a good example regarding your first example. he has this song, good kid maad city, where nigga is used in about every single sentence. the whole hook is full with it. at a concert, he invited a white girl to rap the song on stage. of course she went full with it. he stopped the track after she rapped nigga a few times during the track l and began to.blame her on stage for it. of course the whole crowd went with it. i mean. what a god damn motherfucker. seriously. i dont want to know what the girl was going through mentally. it must have been horror. the obsession with the n word is crazy anyway. of course i dont use it in mh regular life..but when i quote a rap song, i quote it literally ofc.

akomtu 4y ago

It means "servant" basically, and it's about an apparent difference in social classes. If I ask a barista "you can also mow my lawn if you want to make some money" it's an insult that the barista can't even refute, but if I ask my friend the same, he'll take it as a joke.

sureglymop 4y ago

Because there is a contextual difference! Historical context matters, and saying things like "all lives matter" or "we're all the same (so we should be able to use the same words?)" actually undermine the collective struggle this group of people has had to deal with. Life isn't binary, it's always more complex than that. It's not rational to just do a "reset" at this point in time and say "oh, i have nothing to do with what my predecessors have engaged in, so i can't be held accountable"... because that's not true, the predecessors lives and actions directly affect ones life. I understand that sometimes the direct outrage over something small might seem ridiculous, but at the same time I don't understand why people have such a problem with just not using a certain word. It really isn't hard...