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Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, welcome.
We Nigus, Nigus.
What is the language of.
Origin Ethio into Almaharic? What is the definition a king?
It's used as a title of the sovereign of Ethiopia.
Nigas Vegas could use in a sentence the Nigas ruled Ethiopia until the coup of nineteen seventy four.
Nigus and who would you say the word loudly for the judges?
Nigus one more time?
Nigus, Nigus, Jesus, n e g Us, Nigus.
My nigga, my nigga, Hey, what's up? My niggas? We also will say nigga please.
Sometimes we might say I wish a nigga would and then sometimes it's just nigga.
And you all guess what we're talking about today? Are you tying? Cringing? Say what that's please? Because this ain't just ratchet.
We are also teaching we have all experienced or heard about those moments where somebody white tries to take it too far and say the N word. And we're not talking about like in the spelling bee niggas we're talking about something like this. One of my favorite bits of his is that when white people are rich, they're just rich forever and ever, even though kids are rich.
But when a black guy gets rich, it's count down to one.
He's poor, he's the blackest white guy, and then all the negative things we think about black people.
This fucker, you're singing a nigger. Yes, you are the niggarous fucking.
I have ever.
I don't think he could do that.
So you know, there are some people among us who even make it okay for white people to say this, but Oprah believes we shouldn't even say it.
It's impossible for me to do it because I know the history, and I know that for so many of my relatives whom I don't know, who I don't know by name, people who I am connected to my ancestors, that was the last word they heard. They were being strung up by a tree.
And you know, the thing that we have to also consider is the nation's oldest civil rights organization and the largest, the NAACP, which I will remind everyone is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also agrees with lady Oh and even tried to bury the N word in two thousand and seven and gave it a whole funeral.
We're not going to do this in workstance anymore. It's time to stop. And we hope that our rappers, our media, or the movie theaters, all of that, Hollywood, all of us see what we're trying to do, and it's time that we make it change.
It's time that we decide and what we want and demand it because nothing is going to be given it to us unless we get out here and let the world know this is not acceptable.
Well that was in two thousand and seven.
And before we cut to any more sound, I just want to ask my co host how long they think the N word stayed dead or did it ever die?
It never died, They never died. That was kind of a ridiculous stunt. I think you know it never died.
I think that you do.
I think it was more than a stunt. I think I think for a certain generation of Black Americans, this thing cuts really deep. Live at a time where our parents.
Could have, for you know, foreseeably had to exist through.
That term being used as a bludgeon tool right to level them to make them feel small, to make them feel less than. And then comes the advent of you know, mostly rap hip hop, where it had a renaissance, if you will, and not just not a renaissance in its original fashion, but a renaissance in the sense that it was. This is a word that was used to demean, to hurt, to cut deep, to the red meat, and we're gonna take it, reform it, and put it back out there as.
A word of our.
Own choosing, with a meaning of our own choosing, and the rest would be history. And I think we now find ourselves at a place where there's generational device between how people walk away with a sentiment after they hear that word my mother, my mother in law, my aunt's uncles is not a word you want to say around any of them.
There there was also this debate around I'm gonna come to you tube, But there's also been a long standing debate around if there's a difference between the E R and the A of course right, And I just I think that's another thing, like which word, which version of the word did we actually bury in two thousand and seven. I think that's also a distinction word noting. But I want to hear it, you guy.
Say geographically though, you can be in the South and here a white person say nikkir yeah, and it be intended with the same venom.
I don't care.
I'm just saying.
Any vow they ended with, they can't say it.
But well, I completely disagree with you about the generational thing. I think, you know, we maybe look outside of our own immediate experience in family members. My every generation, I know, and my my parents said the word. My grandparents said the word, you know, So it's not necessary generational. Even now, there are people who say the word and people who don't. People have strong opinions about it. I also kind of take issue with this idea that is rooted in white supremacy.
The word originated from the Spanish word, you know, and the Spaniards that's how they describe black people. It wasn't even meant to be a slur at that point. It was just this is what we no more than you would call the Japanese. They called them Japanese, you know, when the Portuguese and the European set sell to Japan. So what white people then co opted the word. They didn't even invent it. They co opted the word and along with many other things, they used it as a
slur at that point. And so I don't choose my I don't center them in any point in my life. I don't center them in the language I use. I don't center them in when I say it, how I say it. I do think it is a word meant to be said privately. I am uncomfortable. We have some mutual friends who will say it in front of non black people, and I do think this is a family conversation and family talks. I don't like for myself and
personally for us to say it in mixed company. But in terms of it being a word that said in gin pop and the population, I say say it if
you want to, and I don't. I don't mean to be dismissive of bearing the word, but I think I think that was like in the early two thousands, that or late ninety yeah, two thousand and seven when that happened, Of all the things that was going on during that time, I don't think that bearing the in word and imposing your you know, narrow view on it was the most the best use of time and resources, but that you use.
The word your narrow view, which I received as a pejorative, not your narrow no no, no no, but your narrow view being the people who wanted to bury it had had a definition of what it meant to them. And I have to say that the majority understanding of that word, regardless regardless of his Spanish origin, which has to do with the fact that that's the color, right.
So, but nowhere.
Did nigger get its definition from.
Simply the color black?
That it was always from its very beginnings, from its origins, as it relates to its application to us used as a pejorative, as an insult, as a weapon as well.
It wasn't by white people, and it wasn't the Spanish, yes, but it was actually the Latin word, not negatal, but niger. It wasn't even a patrol like the people who made it one were white people here in America. They made it one, right, so they sole the word and turned it into something ugly.
They bastardized it.
Is what your argument is, and my argument is is that regardless of its little known, little regarded origins, except for a particular country and maybe region of the world, by and large, the definition under which we understand it has a pejorative meaning and a diminutive one toward us, toward toward black folk people of color, and if I ever understood it being spoken by them as a term of endearment toward me, I can't think of them.
No, I can't. No, I don't think.
I don't think anybody's arguing that at all. I actually think that that you all aren't saying something too different. I think she's saying the Latin term. Yeah, it was one meaning, and then when white folks enslaved us, stole us, brought us here, they took it to mean something completely horrible and awful, like brute and wench.
I think that before we get to be adopted across the globe, French parliamentarians began to use.
The words as it relates to what happened here and along the Transatlantic slave trade to define and talk about black people. But when we bring it up to modern times, I do think it's important, whether it's a bad experience or a positive experience. What you all's earliest memories of the N word were or memory?
Hmmm, I didn't know, if y'all need to think.
I'm pretty sure it was comedy, probably SNL I remember on because it didn't used to be a word that you couldn't say on TV. The Jeffersons, you know, I actually do remember The Jefferson's, an episode of The Jefferson's because it was something that was said on television. That's how common the word was. So it wasn't hip hop that resurfaced it like it was. It's always been here, even in music. Andrew, you know, like the war and you think of, you know, Mom's Maybley, fact check me
on Mom's Maybley. But Millie Jackson, you know, like there's always every generation. I think I remember there was an episode of The Jeffersons. It was a rerun and they George Jefferson was it was the overlap between them and Archie Bunker, and George Jefferson was saying, you know, they wanted him to hire Edith to work at his dry cleaning business, and he said.
If we do.
Something like the niggas that think she uh, the white folks that think she a nigga, and the niggas that think we bleeds.
The help, Oh my god.
But this was the thing with the dialogue with George Jefferson, and he used to also when he you know, they became they were spin off and when they had their own. He used to always call the guy was her name's husband. He's called him Hounky all the time. And the white man was a backlom Were you call me that? What if I called you nigga? And it's like I wish you would?
And they blew up when he said that in the show, right, like the responses from the audience.
It wasn't though the thing.
It was so because they said it all the time.
So I take a slight exception with the familiarity and the usage of the word in the in the late seventies early eighties, those were shows done by Norman Lear, and Norman was credited across, you know, really across platforms, regardless of who the critic is, as using humor as
a way to put a mirror up to the American people. Yeah, into Archie Bunker, sitting on the couch and and and and using terminology that everyone could laugh with because it was such an obvious characteristic of who he was, and therefore who somebody's who one person's grandfather, you know, he reminded him of about his grandfather, George Jefferson reminded us at least of an aspirational view of what we might do or be like if we were ever to.
Come into wealth.
And I didn't know anybody who had moved on up and that and and and and that way, and so it was in many ways aspirational, but it wasn't ubiquitous across television the usage of it. That's what made his work so noteworthy and exceptional, is that it was so rare and he used so this is mirroring technique as a way to to ease the conversation and make it more comfortable and not a third rail.
So but I'm this and I do want you to reflect on your earliest memory of this, But I just mine kind of dovetails with tiff. I remember my parents listening to Richard Pryor records and he said it all the time, and he said it with they are all the time, and my parents like, I'm gonna get in trouble, Mom, don't get mad.
It's the truth. My mom and my dad, sisters she didn't like you would go him that like.
I don't, I mean, or even if they were joking, like she would be like listen and they would fall out laughing. So like I associated the N word for a long time just with comedic moments like I didn't know that you couldn't say it. For example, on my first Communion day because I was I was baptized Catholic hair. First Communia had first repentance or whatever it's called. Ain't called first repents now I'm pentecosta.
I don't know what the other world was called.
Anyway, we had to go see the priests and you tell them what you did wrong. Anyway, Yes, whatever it is, but it was, it's a name for it, first reconciliation.
That's the first Communion day. I had a cat. We had all the family over the house.
This is my dad's fault. Yeah, all the family over the house and I couldn't get to the cat. We had the elders at the house too, and I said, come here, you little bastard. I did not know, just like with the N word, that bastard was a bad word.
My dad said it all the time. And this is my point. I was My dad and my mom was were mortified, but like I was, like, how was I supposed to know? You guys said all the time. Then they were more mortified.
But my point is, I feel like it's not that different with the inWORD for me from my experience growing up, of course, with the black history parents I got.
You learn quickly after that, right.
That I think, you know, I'm thinking, I'm thinking about it.
I grew up a lot of my younger years in my grandmother's household, and they were much older than my
dad's grandparents, my grandparents when I was growing up. My mom's parents were in their seventies eighties, but a very religious Pentecostal household, and my memory I have very clearly as my grandmother, I mean just backhanding one of my brothers, my second oldest brother, who used the word in the house house and it was as it was as close to blasphemy as you could come like, and my grandmother's as we couldn't play I declare war because cards were of the devil.
They were not supposed to be in the house.
So I think in some ways we do have slightly different experiences because of in the ways in which we were reared and where and so on and so forth. So I do in some ways think there's a generational element. But I also think there has always been, at least amongst us, a familiarity with the word in some sub ownership of it.
Yeah, that didn't mean.
What the pejorative intended, right, Sure, the pejorative definition of it was. But my honest thought is that I have used it and use it with friends and close company, and we almost never have necessarily positive you know. It's like you did something, you know, messed up, and now you or you've done so. But it's in love, it's in care of each other.
But said, it's an accountability where all right, y'all, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. I'm about to mess all up a little bit. And that is growing up in Seattle. It's very multicultural, and there's some constituencies in Seattle, like at least high school, middle school for me, that grew up so closely with us, particularly a lot of Filipino kids who said the N
word and we didn't think anything of it. In New York, you'll see a lot of times Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and of course we know that slave ship stopped in different.
Period.
They could be, but they also might not be. They could be indigenous, right or.
Have someone in there.
There's a distinction, right right, But.
I'm saying like there's some of that and people are coming and I'm like, you're right, I'm a whole hypocrite there. But there is one thing that I want to point out here, and that is that some rappers, including Politzer Prize winning Kendrick Lamar, disagree with Lady Oh, disagree with Berry in the in word, disagree with your grandma got black Andrew but white. Andrew at the beginning of the episode spelled it out, and of course Kendrick is.
On that same thing.
He said with royalty and that's how he would like to remix and reinterpret the N word.
Yeah, And I think that's why I was saying, it's a narrow perspective to bury it. I think if you choose not to say it, then don't say it. But it's just a crazy thing to me that somebody within community would tell. I mean, I'm a big live and let live person. It's like, but it offend you, then don't say it? Yeah, you know, but don't tell me because we're in the same community. So within our community, I respect your understanding of the word and how it
impacts you, but respect mine. And I think that's the what we have to to show up as I think the question of who gets to say it. You know, j Lo got in a lot of trouble when she did the song with Jah Rule, and you know, she's Puerto Rican from the Bronx, and I know people feel a way about her now. But she had that song with y'all Rule and she was saying, I tell them niggas mind their business, but they don't hear me though, and people outside the.
Tri State were like, whoa what? You don't get to say that.
So I think the question of who gets to say it and how it's received even that, I couldn't imagine telling somebody like you shouldn't be offended, or you should be offended if you offended didn't say it some people. I think Mariah Carey was asked about it, like would she say the word? And Maria Carey identifies herself as black, so she feels like, yes, I can say this. She's white presenting when she first came out and we didn't know a lot about Mariah Carey, people felt the way
about that answer, So I don't know. I think if everybody would do what they want to do and mind your business about what other people want to do and get to the real important things that are happening in our community outside who gets to say the inn word? I think that's better, But do I get own it? Conversation own?
Do we own the in word? Yes, we own nigga.
So when you say get like, mind your business, you're talking about mind the community?
These business are you saying mind your business now? But that's for community people. You're specifying all talking about No, no.
No, no, no, all of this is in community. I censor us at everything. Can I play the Tanahase?
I was, yeah, I wanted to say this to Andrew.
I don't know if you wanted to weigh in here, but I think that there is an intense fascination with who can say the in word, and us consistently being interrogated about who can say the in word?
And yeah, so took that question.
Tanahase was asked by a student and she was saying, she doesn't say it, and there are like, you know, these hip hop songs and people say it, and she wanted his opinion on white people saying this word, and he gave her an answer that I thought was pretty brilliant and summed up how I feel.
Listen, shit, when you're white in this country, you're taught that everything belongs to you. Do you think you have a right to everything? You got a right to go with you? I mean in your condition this way. It's not you know, because you you know your hair is a texture or your skin is light. It's the fact that the laws in the culture tell you this. You got a right to go where you want to go, do what you want to do. Be however, and people
just got to accommodate themselves to you. So here comes this word that you know, you feel like you invented, and now somebody will tell you how to use a word that you invented. You know, why can't I use it? Everyone else gets to use it? You know what. That's racism that I don't get to use it. You know that's racist against me. You know, I have to inconvenience to myself and to hear this song, and I can't sing along. How Come I can't sing along?
You know what I mean?
And I think, you know, for white people, I think the experience of being a hip hop fan and not being able to use the word nigga's actually very very insightful. It will give you just a little peak into.
The world of what it means to be black.
I think he summed it up perfectly, so perfectly. I don't even have anything else to add to.
Well, Mike drop moment from tanahasty but before we drop it all the way word what I say, he gets, So it's Tana hot for a lot because you're not the only one Tana sea coat. Since how you say it, ta ha se definitely not trying to n word brother today, but I was gonna say no, no, no, yes, why can't I use it? So speaking of who can't use it, though, we are clear that we don't think white folks should
be able to. But Kendrick Lamar on one of his disc tracks recently, Euphoria, he said he don't like when Drake said it. He said, we don't want to hear you say nigga, no my, and it was weird. I think the query really is is it because he's biracial? Is it because he's Canadian? Is it because he's corny?
Just because like I think you feel no, no, no, no no, I'm just asking the question.
Well, how do you feel about Drake saying it?
I don't care about Drake saying it. I think I think one of the things that's remarkable there was a and I didn't cut it for this because it was
too long. It was so interesting a YouTube series where black folks sit with Africans and African Americans sit with Africans and they ask the question on if they say nigga and why, And for some people they think it is a unique experience for Black Americans to be able to say this word, to have ownership over this word, and not black people throughout the diaspora.
That is not my perspective on it, because I think black folks who.
Were coming from the continent here were called that, you know, and whatever it is, whatever we can own and do own, I'm good with that. Whether that's land, whether it's the word nigga, whether it's money, whether whatever it is the highest office of the land, I'm good with that. I just think that it really taps into the perception on Drake's psyche, and that is what he was calling attention to.
There are people who are black appearing, are black adjacent, and they get to do things with us like us, even when they don't care about us. And I think that was really the question. I don't even think it was so much about Drake as it was like people like.
You, Yeah, you know, I don't even honestly, I don't care at all about white people's thoughts on the word nigga. Like it's just I just don't center that perspective.
I was talking about Kendrick could Drake No.
But when you were talking about the YouTube video that you wanted to play about these white kids asking each other like how they feel about it?
No, I'm sorry, I said black Americans and Africans.
I thought you were saying white black America.
Okay, that changes it.
Yeah, no, I'm you answer it, my man. I thought you were saying it with a bunch of white hem No, no, no, no.
No, no no.
This was literally Africans from the contine, like, yes, this woman was born here, but her parents are from Nigeria.
It is you know, and black Americans.
And I was saying, do black people throughout the diaspora on this word or is it a Black American owned word? And I was saying, I don't have an opinion on that. I don't care when we were the other because we were all impacted by that.
Hip hop has taken it to the continent for sure.
Oh yeah, but also the slave ship that went there first ticket to the you know what I'm saying, Like we were called that.
But that was the I think the slur, I mean, the way yeah has taken it there, Yeah Yeah, what's your prior records?
I do think as we I think early in the conversation we said that there are very, very important and vexing things to the community. The language piece, I think
we've pushed past. There was a heated moment of it right in the nineties, largely in competition and in contrast to what was happening and the growth of hip hop and the popularity of hip hop, which transcended just black fans and it became highly popular concerts attended by majority white audiences, so on and so forth, made this into a heated tenor.
But I think the waves have calmed a little bit.
I kind of feel like if I got out of the head games between Kendrick and Drake on that what Kendrick might have been referring to is there is a unique Black American, black Southern American relationship with the word and not only is this brother not black Southern or have that experiences similar to what Obama faced about not being black enough. He was not bought up in the traditional black American experience.
He was in Greg's daddy from Memphis.
That may be the case. He was born and reared in Canada.
Yeah, I just was telling you that. Yeah, so some of that is at play. I hear this. I think that we might need to consider a part too.
But I think one of the things that we should not to close this is dear white people, we don't want to hear you say nigga, No more, y'all.
Can bury it. Carry on.
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Y'all.
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