Fat Joe, Big Pun and True Life have obviously grown up using that word…amonst blacks.

Do you realize that for some it makes no difference what lines we draw around each other?

“Y tu abuela, a’onde ta?” It’s a saying because it is mostly right… most people in countries that were colonized by the Spanish have some black heritage. That being said, what does it matter, who “owns” the word? Why perpetuate hateful language?

Personally, I’m not one to use the term, endearing or otherwise. Why? When it was used when I was younger in a pretty white part of Los Angeles County by white and latino friends and (very close) relatives, its use always smacked of racist aggression, no matter how many times they would try and cover up by saying they weren’t racist or how many times they loved black people, but didn’t hang around any.

In the late eighties and early nineties (pre-Rodney King), which is a kind of 1950s for suburban minorities. Admittedly, none of us in our group of friends, white, black, brown, asian, jewish, whatever…called anyone a “nigger”, “nigga”, “niggy”, whatever. I don’t know, we just didn’t. Perhaps because we were educated to be overly p.c. about it. Or because we were too distracted by loud Cross-Colors jeans. But whenever someone used it, it was typically maliciously, you knew…and the school would erupt into a small-scale race riot (which happened in our high-school, thanks to some white supremacists and my tagger of a best friend…).

As for its contemporary use, the use of the terms amounts to a good deal of posturing, more than anything. I always found it a little strange when my rich, blonde-hair, blue-eyed, Guatemalan-Jewish cousin would call me (the darkest one in my family), his nigga. It was, well, pretty wiggerish and just in bad faith. Not that he should have become preppy or anything, which he didn’t.

So, in my opinion, nobody owns the term and we all do. Isn’t that the nature of language? I’m just not that into that particular one. Maybe I sould talk with my Peruvian-American shrink about this one.

I want to talk with Michael Eric Dyson about this. And listen to as many versions of “Babalu” in Spanish as I can possibly find, beginning with Astrid Haddad’s. The english version sucks. And to read about Afro-Mexicans in soccer.

-ferrerom3

YUCA- Young Urban Cuban American

The word nigger became more prominent during the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, after the Civil War in the deep south. Yes the word can be used as a term for negative and positive connotations but does not carry the same weight as did it in the past. People use the word to be hip, to hate and to discriminate, it belongs to all. Is it right? Is it fair? We all know nothing in this world is fair, if the african american community want to eradicate this word from the english vocabulary then stop using it. Denzel won a freakin oscar in a movie that had it over a hundred times. Which is worse, profiting from your comedic or music act using the word or calling an african american a nigger because he cut you off….Not sure I can answer that since I dont hate anyone that I do not know. Maybe Denzel should of pass up the role. Eradicate the word from 50 cent songs and so on.

The word nigger does not describe the current racial issues in the world today, it is part of the american past and should be buried.

I am not your homey….

As for latinos using it? I thinkly only latinos from The Bronx should use it. And by latinos I mean Puerto Ricans. Don’t even think about calling a dark or brown skin Dominican black or nigga.

I knida buy the idea of uppity negroes distancing themselves from the term because they want to assimilate. However, no matter how far a language has eveloved, words hurt. If you flinch when you hear someone refer to you as their nigga, then you gotta problem with it. I flinch all the time.