| Monday, September 19, 2005 |
| A cautionary tale for hip-hop |
A friend emailed me this extraordinary article by David Sylvester, a personal trainer from Philly who recently completed a bike ride across the African continent. One of the disturbing things he encountered on his trip, recounted on the Contribute2.org web-site and in this story for the Washington Informer, is the proliferation of the word "nigger" among Africans, mainly to describe African-Americans and other foreign blacks, but also to describe themselves in the context of hip-hop culture.
The gist of Sylvester's piece is that while on his bike trip, he encoutered a hip hop clothing and accessories store in Malawi that happened to be called "Niggers". No, this isn't a joke, that was the name of the store. Read the Informer article here.
I've also long been disturbed by the predominent public use of the word "nigger" by Black entertainers from comedy to music, mainly because of the prospect of white and other audiences repeating the term, because they think they can. How many times have I ridden the subway in New York and heard a group of Hispanic "hip hop kids" throwing the word around blythely, to describe "this nigga" who did this or "that nigga who did that..." and wanted to flatten all of them? And how many white audiences have stood in the front row at a Jay Z concert and sung along to all the lyrics, only to come to a screeching halt at the line "and you who rollin' with, huh? My n.... ahem..."
It's incongruous to say the least. Most Black people would kick the ass of any White person who called us a nigger to our face. But we throw the word around so often with each other and in our entertainment culture, how does your average White kid, for instance, figure out that there's anything wrong with it? Hell, you can't rent a Chris Tucker movie or watch "Chappelle's Show" without hearing it, although in the latter example, it's usually used with a heavy dose of comedic irony. And now, it seems, we're infecting Africa with the nigga virus.
What a shame... I wonder if White people have the same problem with the term "redneck"... think there are any European rock 'n roll kids trailer park punking each other on the tube...? |
posted by JReid @ 3:08 PM   |
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