I honestly don’t care what white people call black people when they are ‘amongst like minded’ white people. How the hell would I even know?
That’s how you can tell I’m back.
Ya daggone skippy.
Well, intent does matter. Nzinga and her friends don’t intend to cause the same feelings that the average white person using the word would. Not that I don’t agree with the point you’re making.
What I want to know is, why are loud people so BLACK?
Oh, no he di-ii-dn’t.
It wasn’t clear by your post that you were describing them as they as described themselves. The word wasn’t set off by quotes or anything, so it looked as if you could as well as have inserted “nigger” in there and it wouldn’t have changed anything.
The rest of your post about the black folk/nigga dichotomy is both interesting and puzzling to me. “Nigga”, as Nzinga says, works as a term of endearment. But your usage suggests that it is something different, with the whole dichotomy and intelligentsia thing . At times I wonder if you’re really conflating “nigga” and “nigger” even as you say they are two different things, and maybe this is what bothers me about your usage in the aforecited post. Sometimes it’s not clear what is really being said when “nigga” is used like you used it.
But nevermind me. Just rambling.
Whether you care or take offense has nothing to do with anything. The point is that you finding it okay to use with like-minded people doesn’t define it out of being a slur. You aren’t the arbiter of the English language all by yourself.
But that’s the issue at hand, nor are you. Why not just live and let live?
You think I made up the idea of “nigger” being a slur? EDIT: And I’m letting live, I’m just disagreeing with faulty logic and an incorrect assertion. EDIT: My point was never “stop doing that”, just “don’t pretend you’re doing anything more than throwing slurs at people”.
Of course not, but clearly Nzinga, Seated and her friends simply do not view “nigger” and “nigga” in the same light. She certainly isn’t the only one to see it that way. Although I’m white, I went to DCPS and I swear I heard that word more than any other in the hallways amongst black youth. It just seems to me that the term “nigga” used in a sense of camaraderie is here to stay.
Edit- Ok, but can it still be a slur if it is used within a group of people that don’t consider it a slur at all?
How the fuck is it ‘throwing slurs at people,’ when the people I am batting about terms of endearment with have made a *conscious decision * to claim a word that others wish to god that they can still hurt us with?
We use it amongst each other, not around black grandmother’s whom have been sprayed with water hoses by cops who spat the word viscously at them.
What’s this bullshit about “don’t pretend” that we’re not 'throwing slurs at people".
…the fuck outta here with that hysteria.
Why do you assume that it was used in a sense of camaraderie just because a bunch of black people were using it with each other?
As in they just consider it a synonym for black people? Yes, of course, that’s its history isn’t it?
Well, you were quite hypocritical for having something to say about Askia’s usage of the term while admitting that you use it yourself, and apparently unapologetically. That sounds exactly like you’re pretending that you’re doing something more than just throwing slurs at people.
I assume that because that is what Nzinga, Seated has stated. I’m sure that if she or any of her friends had had a problem with it, it would have come out by now.
Edit- I realize you were probably talking about my experiences with the DC school system. In that case I assumed they were using it in a friendly sense because they were laughing and/or grinning and simply did not seem to be using it maliciously. How often does a black person call another black person a nigger and mean it in the same way a white person might?
So you’d swallow any BS academic explanation for a black phenomenon that any black person offers? Read some pre-sixties fiction or documents with dialog or quotes from uneducated blacks and you’ll see that same usage of “nigger” you’ve heard during your times in DCPS; the only thing that’s new is the bogus “reclaiming the word” spiel.
I am nothing if not a very plain person. So I am sure my language was simple and clear when I expressed that my opposition to Askia’s use of the word had to do with the fact that it was not used as a term of endearment amongst like minded peers.
It was used on a message board to refer to blacks that have undesirable personality traits, (loud ass niggas).
That makes me a hypocrite? What the fuck??
You know I love ya, right, pizzabrat?
While I object to the flippant use of “nigga”, especially in easily misconstrueable circumstances (like this, where black folks are on the chopping block once again), I think intent makes it a slur not its mere usage.
Nzinga piped up when it seemed that nigga was being used as an epithet, just as I did. That doesn’t make her hypocrite. She’d only be a hypocrite if she was in the habit of using it as a racial slur. She hasn’t given us any reason to believe that she does.
Most times, I’d say. I can count on one hand (and I’m not exaggerating) the times I’ve been called “nigger” by a black person, and I got pissed off beyond belief each time. Not even in a conscious “that’s a slur and I should be offended” way. The people who are okay with that can have each other, but it doesn’t mean their intentions are different.
So when is “nigger” used in a way that it’s clearly not a slur (spell it dialectically if that really makes a difference)?
When it’s not used to convey insult or outright dismissal of another person’s humanity?