Articles Tagged: N word

Jesse Jackson,The N Word, and The View

July 19th, 2008 | By Sonnie

Growing up, I never heard the word nigger used in my house. I lived in the Ghetto with my mother and if she heard me say that word she would have knocked my teeth down my throat. Then I moved with my Dad and he never used the N word. He never showed he didn’t like white people, but he had no white friends and didn’t make much conversation when white people were around.

It wasn’t used in my household, but it was used by my friends. We used it to be hurtful and we used it to show love. That’s why there are two different spellings. Nigger, that’s the word you use to be disrespectful. Nigga, that’s the word you use for your friends.

Now with the controversy of Jesse Jackson using the N word to describe Barack Obama, there is a public uproar. It’s not the word that’s the problem, it’s the use of the word by a so called Black Leader. As I have said before just because you’re famous doesn’t make you a leader, and until we start to hold them accountable, they will continue to make money off our suffering.

Jesse Jackson knows his ability to profit will fall if Barack Obama becomes president. How can he champion for equality when there is a black man in the Oval Office. They hate him. I don’t agree with Barack’s policy, but I love the message he gives to the black community. There is nothing we can’t accomplish.

The View

If you were to ask me today, who is my favorite actress, Whoopi Goldberg. Hands down. Color Purple, Jumping Jack Flash, Sarafina, these are some of my favorite movies. So I question. If we live in different worlds, How did your tar black ass get into acting over 20 years ago. I know conditions have to be better than when you started your career.

It all comes to excuses. I don’t care if a white person uses the word. You can’t stop me with a word. You can’t hurt me with a word. I’m more upset by black men referring to me as a bitch because I won’t have sex with them. That hurts me. A white person calling me a Nigger let’s me know where they stand, and I have no problem with that.

My comrads say I’m crazy for thinking like that. “If a white person calls me a Nigger, I’m going to fuck him up.” You go do that, and when you’re in hand cuffs over a word, don’t blame it on being black. Blame it on ignorance, from your end. If someone calls you a nigger and doesn’t hire you, why would you want to work there? If someone calls you a nigger while in their store, why would you continue to shop there? If someone calls you a nigger out it street, have you not been called worse?

Mostly, I don’t mind if white people use it, because I use it. I still use it’s negative form and it’s positive form. Jesse Jackson is a Nigger. The ignorant man that steps on people the same color as him to help him get ahead. Barack Obama is not a Nigger, because he doesn’t make excuses, he tells you to stand up for yourself. Neither is my Nigga, because I don’t personally know either one.

You can’t have my words, but I don’t have the right to take words from you either. If as a culture we decide the word is acceptable, then let it be acceptable. If we can’t break the cycle of using it in our own communities, then we have to accept the consequences. That’s the reality.

We can’t continue to ask for double standards, when we want complete unity. What makes us so special as black people that we get to make up our own rules?

I want to apologize to Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Your ability to sit on that stage and have them tell you, we have rights you don’t, and take it. I applaud you. The only problem is we don’t want solutions. If we have solutions, then what could we complain about.

It’s really funny to see two black women on one of the most highly debated T.V. shows complain about inequality. It’s even funnier to have one of the those black woman tell a white woman something she can’t say. I want to hear Elizabeth Hasselbeck tell Whoopi, you can’t talk about white people, because you date white men. How much of a fire storm would that cause? I bet Whoopi could even find an excuse to talk her way out of that one.

In short, you hold on to the hate behind that word. I’ll let it go, because unless your my Nigga, it matters not to me.