Okay. So. I'm saying...I watched the special and I adore Don Lemon. I didn't think it was the most sophisticated conversation ever but still I appreciated that there was an open forum on the discussion. I didn't write an editorial immediately after wattching the special because I felt shamed by Don Lemon's editorial conclusion
""Have you ever considered that you may be perpetuating the stereotype that massa intended? Acting like a n*gger. Stop acting like n*ggers and saying 'n*gga,' n*gga."
And then I read Ebony Magazine's rebuttal by Michael Arcenaux http://www.ebony.com/news-views/the-weekly-read-dear-don-lemon-495#ixzz2Y4CBxjFe. And I gotta say that this is a perfect comeback. Arcenaux writes:
"I hope and pray I never catch Bill Cosby disease, because that brand of self-loathing and uppity point of view makes me want to bury my head in shea butter. If you’re really about going against the wishes of “massa,” why not do your part to discuss institutional racism? Wouldn’t that be far more of a worthy discussion on a huge outlet like CNN versus this trite debate?"
Arcenaux goes on to discuss the Supreme Court decision knocking down the Civil Rights Act (a thing I personally told hysterical callers whocalled the Hill that this would never happen) he brings in Paula Deen and Trayvon Martin. He follows that right hook with a straight left to the nose:
"The last thing Black people need right now is their own speaking down to them because the person doing the finger pointing can’t be bothered to get off his high horse to understand their culture."
Daayuumm.
I must say that Arcenaux wins on points and a KO. But I still got mad love for Don Lemon.
I use the word Nigga. I grew up with that word. For me to stop using that word with all the complex expressions that it entails when spoken among black people would be basically impossible. It was everyday that I'd be visiting my grandfather on 15th Street that someone would shout with a cheerful wave "Claude you cheap ass nigga how the hell you doing!!"
Or he might look at someone and shake his head and say "That nigga's crazy" Saying it with bewilderment or love or affection or hate.
My grandmother rolling her eyes saying "I aint studyin' that nigga" -- talking about my grandfather. Which was a lie and we all knew it. They were the love of each other's lives.
It is simply a word that has so many connotations when spoken between black people. Even now with my grandparents gone and my grandfather's domain of 15th Street disappeared from the Old Days I'll think it to myself or say in conversation to my mother. It's impossible to separate that word from my experience in life.
Which is not to laud the word nor hail it as a great thing. The word Nigga whether one likes it or not is a reclaimed word from the word Nigger. You know. That word hateful white slave traders and masters used. In a wonderful world both words would disappear and there would be no need for blacks to have a differentiation of a word that was more common than personal Christian names down South.
However there is an entire culture and history that inform the word Nigga. And though I recognize that I'm very nearly walking a double standard I don't appreciate how Hip hop made the word available to everyone who "feels" hip-hop. Hip-hop took the sting and the love and the brotherhood out of the word nigga, from the manner in which it had been used once exclusively among blacks tho I know many would beat me down on this point and argue the opposite. Hip-hop gave a sort of bland permission to use it for non-blacks and therein opened the door for many a confused pale skinned soul to say "But I mean it in love!!"
Do I know some white people, hardcore hip-hop heads, unlike myself, who have a pass in my presence to say that word? Yes. Yes I know white people who get the pass in my company. Because hip-hop commercialized the word it becomes nearly impossible to then put up doors that forbid certain folk not to enter.. Hip hop has given the pass on the word Nigga because all you have to do is buy the album. Pay up and you can be a nigga too!
Holla my nigga!! Ya heard me?
That said I don't LIKE it that way. It is a complex term. When I hear white people, yea, verily, even the ones with the White Pass, use the word I can't explain why on some days the shit pisses me off. I can't guarantee that inside my heart I won't hear you, my pale skinned homies, mean the OTHER word.
In my heart N-I-G-G-A belongs to my grandfather and 15th Street. To DoorShaker and Wally whose name was spelled W-I-L-E-Y. To Geechee. To all them niggas who was hanging out on the corner eating soul food and yes godammit fried chicken too!! You cannot break me down, you racists who mock fried chicken!! I cannot be BROKEN by that mockery and niggardly,small minded thinking. Get out of here with that!
The niggas that I knew, from that old generation long before hip-hop knew things about life, about America, about love and money and God the spirit of survival. And they taught those lessons over plates of food heaped high with fried chicken and greens and gravy and biscuits and all the recipes that Paula Deen has profited from which came from the people who slaved in massa's kitchen. Those niggers.
It's a deeply layered complex emotional word. Perhaps it is for the best that whites and blacks who wish to be respected and respectable, as Don Lemon's point of view expressed, to never use it ever. It comes from the ugliness of Nigger. Can any word ever redeem the hate and destruction of souls that litters its history? Is there any penance that can ever wash the blood of evil and the roots of cruelty from all the word nigger entails?
But does that stop the joyful laughter at a family meal when somebody gets called out hard "Nigga don't you EVEN---!!" And everyone is falling over themselves, tears streaming down at whoever was just busted on. Oh that's my FAMILY's word!!
My family, my blood is BLACK.
Arcenaux makes such a strong point in his essay that he un-shames me from Don Lemon's shaming speech of the Respectable Negro. But again these are dynamics that are old as slave ships between black folks. This argument, discussion, debate if you will is not new. The tension between the Respectable Negro and the Street Nigga has always been.
Oh at times I long for respectability. But that's not where I came from. We weren't respectable negroes. The preacher on Sunday preached in my family's faces about the evils of gambling and sin and greed and partying. And it was known he was talking to my family members who owned and ran the juke joints. We were highly educated however; and I still feel a frisson of glee when I meet a respectable negro in my hometown whose academic achievements pale in comparison to my family's. Ah but exclusion breeds envy. So perhaps my own feelings on this tension between Respectability and Street are all too clear. Perhaps the complexities are only in my own head.
We were the non-conformist. So is it non-conformist or utterly conformist to have a love and respect for N-I-G-G-A as a word?
Is it utterly shameless to use it, to know what you mean and to whom you are speaking and why you called them that name over a table of delicious soul food? When it's your blood? Your family whom you adore and who can never, ever, EVER be that OTHER word? People whose dignity and soul will never be degraded by THAT word N-I-G-G-E-R because you would protect them with the last drops of your own strength.
It's a loaded discussion. I don't think Don Lemon is WRONG however. The slave massa's most important intent was to cause divisiveness among slaves. To divide and conquer. In our present day the words N-I-G-G-E-R and N-I G-G-A are still dividing us bitterly. Yet hip-hop has conquered in its way, taking the sting away by commercializing it and re-making it as a cheap, easily accessible commodity. Blackness for sale again. What's new?
Complex, you see. Bittersweet.
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