NIGGA? Please!
Ok, this shit is completely ridiculous to me.
You got ‘Ye and Jigga running around calling themselves “Niggas in Paris” and everyone gets up in arms when someone other than them says “Hey there are some ‘Niggas in Paris’. I don’t get it.
Gwyneth Paltrow is currently feeling the backlash after she recently sent a tweet of a photo of her partying with Jay and Beyoncé with the caption “Ni**as in Paris for real…”
LMAO. I mean, what do you expect? These niggas have made that particular phrase POPULAR as all hell. I wouldn’t be surprised if I arrived in Paris in January and there is a special “NIGGAS Lounge” stocked with Hennessy and Swisher sweets at Charles DeGaulle Airport.
True, I’ve found myself having to correct people in several countries-most of whom barely speak english-who’ve met me with a greeting of “What up my nigga?!” Now, they weren’t trying to offend me, but rather to appeal to what they perceive as my cool, Black American steez. They learn it from listening to rap music, watching The Wire or the FRIDAY movies. It is their way of greeting me in [what they believe to be] my native “hip hop” tongue. The same way I would greet someone in Spain with a “¿Hola, como estas?” or in China with a “Ni Hao”. It is actually considered quite polite and proper to greet someone from another culture in their language.
If I’m offended in any way by it, its because I don’t personally refer to myself as a “nigga” and I try to avoid using it to refer to anybody else. But if niggas insist on calling themselves and each other niggas– you can’t be offended when someone else, outside of your culture, in their attempt to acknowledge you and be as”cool” as they perceive YOU to be – does!
(They learned it by listening to you!)
The 15 Project 
See, this is why the very word needs to be eradicated. So sad that this word is ingrained so deeply in many of our minds and hearts
June 5, 2012 at 11:31 am
truth and nothin but….
June 5, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Church!
June 5, 2012 at 1:23 pm
They should just lets us have the word and its derivatives for use whenever we want to be edgy. Its not like we’re going to be getting reparations any time soon so why can’t we have that one little word to police and do with as we see fit.
People in America know, or should know how to use that word. It has been given energy power, and definition by decades of use and will probably only go away when the word becomes irrelevant.
The more you police people not to use, the more they will use it in the worst ways. Its like putting the word on the black market. Its just like all the other expletives that have become abstract and emotionally driven.
Ive been debating the idea of this word since childhood and don’t personally use it to describe my people buy my opinion is that its not going away anytime soon and is connected to the fate of all other expletives in our language.
June 5, 2012 at 11:35 pm
thanks bro. indeed, the term is a form of self-hate. but i would not try to ban the word totally– are we not to show civil rights films where racist whites use the term? also, our youth try to say they are transforming it into something positive, but if what i am hearing on the streets in the community is any example, the vast vast majority of its usage is still sooooo negative. the self-hatred is too deep.
July 12, 2012 at 3:52 pm