So I don’t listen to much rap music. Most of it seems to revolve around stuff talking and putting women down. As a child growing up, I could never understand exactly why the females in my life were so insistent on listening to it. Really, why would we want to embrace a musical genre that regularly called us bitches and hoes? Over time I’ve grown to like a few choice songs but I don’t think I could call myself a true connoisseur of rap and hip-hop music. Besides the blatant misogyny, lots of rap music insists on using the N-word. You know which one I’m talking about. The use of the N word has become so prevalent in black culture that it’s begun to seep into mainstream culture as well.
I remember one of the first times I heard, or took note of a non-white person using the N word in everyday speech, in a non derogatory way. I was driving in the car with some friends in Cleveland late one night. There was a guy in the next car who was trying to get the attention of one of us in the car, I don’t remember what he looked like but I do remember that was the situation. I didn’t see him but apparently he wasn’t very good looking. Without skipping a beat, the girl in the drivers seas says, “Ugh, that nigga was ugly!” I have to admit, I laughed as well before silently asking myself did this white chick really just use the N word?
I let it go in part because no one else seemed to have noticed or taken offense and in part because I didn’t actually know if it had offended me or not. She wasn’t trying to be offensive, I knew that much from the context of the word’s use. Nevertheless, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that the N word shouldn’t be a substitute for everyday words.
A few weeks ago, there was some online hoopla about the use of the N Word by an up and coming female rapper by the name of Kreayshawn. Representing East Oakland California, I have to say her flow is one of the best I’ve seen on a white female rapper in quite some time, or a female rapper for that matter. She has an eclectic style that comes across as authentic and doesn’t seem to be using her sexuality as a selling point. While reading Clutch, one of my favorite online African-American women magazine’s I learned that Kreasyshawn had recently dropped the N bomb in an online tweet.
Perhaps signaling a signs of the times, besides this lone article on Clutch, there didn’t seem to be much uproar surrounding the event. Now that could be because she is currently a new artist that not many know or care about or does the lack of uproar speak to a larger picture?
Personally, I don’t think anyone should be using the N word, much less African-American’s. Literally the word means ignorant and for hundreds of years it was used to oppress and keep African-American’s down. Somehow though we as a people have not only embraced it but we have allowed it to become a mainstay in our culture and American pop culture as well. Just like the girl I rode with in the car, the use of the word by Kreayshwawn wasn’t mean spirited. It was just being used as a stand in for a word like: dude, man, partner, brother, or person.
I’m not even mad at her for the use of the word because I know it doesn’t represent me or who I am. But it seems like most of my brothers and sisters would think otherwise. In my opinion, the lack of uproar surrounding the tweet has more to do with the fact that we’ve come to accept the N word as a suitable replacement for other words. As a people if we want to advance, and stop the rampant use of hate speech in everyday vernacular then we have to collectively decide to ostracize the word from our speech and culture. Because really, it’s a part of our history that should remain behind us. As I stated, the word literally means ignorant but we continue to claim it as, “ours.” Words are more powerful than most of us can comprehend and by using hate speech like the N word to describe ourselves, we are internalizing it regardless of if we want to acknowledge it.
Article by Niesha Davis
A graduate of Eugene Lang College The New School, Niesha Davis is a writer whose work has appeared in Time Out Amsterdam Magazine, on Bed-Stuy.patch.com, and in $pread Magazine. Originally from Cleveland Ohio, she has lived in San Francisco, New York, and Amsterdam. Ms. Davis writes regularly on her blog, http://Lovelyladythoughts.wordpress.com.
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I rarely use the word unless there’s a specific reason for it (ex.quoting someone else or trying to make a specific point). Still, I’m not going to let any word have power over me. I’m not going to treat the word like “Candy man” or “Beetle Juice”. I do think we should be careful and deliberate with our word choice, but that goes beyond racial slurs.
Two minor points:
“Really, why would we want to embrace a musical genre that regularly called us bitches and hoes?”
I know you’re referring to mainstream rap music, but the same could be applied to television, movies, etc. I always recommend people search for music and entertainment instead of having it spoon fed to them through mass media. I can go as long as I want without ever hearing the word “Nigga” or “bitch” or “ho” in the rap music I listen to. This is because I search out artists and support the ones I like. I don’t have cable television and I don’t listen to music on the radio. When you get rid of those two things you are forced to take a more active role in selecting the things you see and hear and it becomes harder to make blanket statements about the genre.
“I have to say her flow is one of the best I’ve seen on a white female rapper in quite some time, or a female rapper for that matter.”
Damn, that doesn’t speak well of white female rappers or female rappers…lol I’m still going to ride with Lauryn (when she rapped), Jean Grae and Bahamadia. I even like some Psalm One.
I’m from Texas but I’ve lived in the Bay Area for the the last year. I’ve noticed that blacks out here aren’t bothered at all by people outside the race using the N word. Filipino’s, Whites, etc. all use the word out here with no hesitation.
I’m guessing Kreayshawn (that can’t be her real name?) got her hood pass a long time ago and nobody checked her on her language. Guess it’s too late in the game to say anything now.
Hey Niesha! Great article . . . . I think I used to see Kreayshawn around Telegraph. . . I think she’s just one of those East Bay kids like J Mark said that ends up growing up around hella (lol) Blacks, Mexicans, Blaxicans, Blasians, etc that drop a N-bomb to mean “dude.” Along with the more bleeding color lines you get in the Bay Area and maybe places like NYC although I don’t know (I can picture like an Italian girl or light skinned PR girl growing up in Brooklyn and coming out sounding like Kreayshawn) you get more questions of authenticity. Since MTV is out there branding “guido” now, if you look deeper its about what groups are still kept down in America so it comes off as messed up to be embracing all of their culture. So Seinfeld is seen as universal but Chappelle Show is not neccessarily (see Stuff White People Like: ironic embracement of the Chappelle Show). It seems like as a country we are coming towards the idea that white people (and maybe Asians, Latinos, too) need a type of double consciousness with regards to black culture. The black opinion on who uses the word should be up to black people not Dr. Laura, but also its would be more useful if white people, instead of getting upset about language, if they really care at all and are not just reading the latest article on the Huffington Post or whatever, joined the public conversation on underfunded inner city schools, lack of basic groceries in predominantly black neighborhoods, continued blatant job and real estate segregation against black Americans.
I think EVERY black person (nothing more or less) has a right to have an opinion that is in some way support of the use or in complete opposition to use of the word…but ultimately TO EACH ITS OWN…
In terms of its history…I think it’d be BEAUTIFUL if the use of the word stimulated beneficial and essential conversation about the HISTORY of the word…the operative word is HISTORY!! we need to use words like this in conjunction with other instances of racism and discrimination to generate imperative conversations about OUR HISTORY…