These are the words of author Ta Nehisi Coates at a lecture he was giving to university students, when one girl in the audience asked how to address her friends using the n-word when singing along to Lil Uzi Vert. I entirely agree with Coates’ assessment: if you are really a white fan of hip-hop, you need to confront how your skin color adds some interesting context and meaning to your music consumption, and you need to reckon with this meaning. If you are a white fan of hip-hop and you use the n-word when you sing along —stop now! It’s not too late! To use the word is to caste yourself voluntarily into the role of white oppressor.
Let's break this down: the historical context of the n-word is that it was invented and given meaning by whites who participated in arguably the most evil and vast iteration of slavery that the world has ever seen. It was and is a tool of oppression. The historical context of blacks using the word has a range of meaning, but since the legal end of slavery it can be reasonably generalized down to ironic use that takes the word’s original power away. These contexts are not the same, and as Coates points out, many ethnic and gender groups use derogatory language within their group ironically to accomplish different meanings. When this is the case, personal relationships between people who belong to that group and the fact that a shared element of identity is at play can change the overall meaning of what is said, overriding historical or outside contexts and meanings of the same terms.
In this vein, Black use of the n-word in hip-hop functions as reclamation, taking power away from the word by re-appropriating it into a variety of different meanings but ultimately affirming black life. Whites do not have access to this meaning because of their historical context with the n-word, which is basically the trump card of historical contexts. Until blacks are truly equal to whites in the United States, how many black friends you have will continue to be dwarfed by ongoing and historical implications.
Continuing on the hunt for white justification, I stumbled upon YouTuber @chescaleigh’s video, “The N-word ‘double standard.’” In it, she brings up how some whites attempt to argue that a double standard is at play concerning the n-word. The “logic” @chescaaleigh is railing against says that blacks shouldn’t say it if they don’t want other people to say it, and that the word has changed meaning to mean “stupid” (I can’t even make this up). First of all, I think calling political incorrectness of whites saying the n-word a “double-standard” is totally oblivious to the mountain of privilege whites sit atop, and is akin to reaching down to the black mountain of struggle and plucking the microscopic condolence of “being able to use the n-word” from it because “it’s not fair.” Just stop. Second, to ask blacks to stop using it if they don’t want other people to use it assumes that all black people use the word, and is ignorant of the disparate meanings the word takes on when used by different groups. Finally, the word has not changed meanings to mean “stupid.” It may be used that way by some people in some conttemporary contexts, but whites do not have access to that meaning. Understand that the meaning of words is different depending on who is saying them, understand hip-hop.
To appreciate hip-hop is to appreciate aspects of the black experience. In this way, the understanding of the black experience that not being able to use the n-word gives is really a gift, a better window into the world of being black that is the focus of the music.
I do think it is very interesting how that person thinks no one should use the word since black people think white people should not use the n word when it has two different meanings when its used by different people. But when you relate it to history and how white people used to use a version of the N word to degrade black people why would white people even want to use the word. Say for instance what if black people started using white slurs to talk to white people then it wouldn't be acceptable.
ReplyDelete