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The N-word Discussion
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Hip hop culture is often blamed for proliferating words like the B-word, the H-word, and the N-word. There’s been a lot of debate about why these words are so prevalent in pop culture. Youth Radio’s Alana Germany talked to Pendarvis Harshaw and Ayesha Walker about all of these potentially offensive words, but their focus quickly turned to one word in particular, the N-word.
Alana: So all of these words have become commonplace and are kind of becoming popular now and like an example is rap music. The content and the usage of the b-word or the h-word have kind of opened up this door for those of other ethnicities to be racist and as soon as they’re confronted with anything they blame it on Black people saying “Oh well they call each other that you know woopdy woomp or whatever.” So, do you think that the smartest way to eliminate it would be to stop using the word?
Pendarvis: One side of me wants to say don’t use it but that lends it power. Because it’s out of common use, break glass in case of emergency, use this word and then that means that this word is the trump card. That’s when everything stops and it’s like aw man, he used the unspeakable word.
Ayesha: Words are symbols but people outside of the circle see that symbol different than someone inside of the circle and being inside of the circle I don’t see no wrong in using the word
Alana: Do you think it’s realistic to try to stop using the word?
Ayesha: Nah, it ain’t realistic to stop. I mean, I’m not tripping off of nobody calling me a word because I’m certain of who I am but then like I’m not going to try to stop nobody from using words because they just words like I mean I say that but then at the same time I do feel weird when I hear somebody that’s like you know not Black or doesn’t, you know that’s not urban use that word. Like Condeleezza Rice if she called me the n-word I would probably get offended
Pendarvis: Cause she’s not part of the same culture as you especially because she’s in a different tax bracket, she, you know, the Ivy League school you know a whole bunch of things that you steer clear of you know using that word or just being in that mind state but then again there’s people, people in the suburbs who just grew up listening to rap music and now you got whole generations of kids who grew up listening to rap music and they feel that they have that mind state because they have absorbed that culture through the music. So it’s all about how you’ve been cultivated.
Alana: So what do you do about those people who aren’t necessarily urban or who maybe think they’re urban or who think that because it’s mainstream they have a right to use that word because Jay-Z says it or because 50 cent says it.
Ayesha: I couldn’t care less I mean. You feel it when you know you can use that word and if it just comes out wrong, then it ain’t even right for you to use that word
Alana: So Pendarvis, what do you think the shift was that made it okay to say the n-word the way we say it now?
Pendarvis: I don’t know man. If I said anything I’d be lying to you man. Cause I, the first thing that popped into my mind was NWA Niggaz 4 Life. And that’s when I was like, oh yeah, that’s when my generation picked it up. Cause I know my sister had that album and I know I stole that album from her and I listened to it and that’s where I got the word from and so I think it’s recycled man I see my little nephew say it the other day and I probably accidentally said it when I was on the phone with one of my friends so we gotta stop this somewhere man I mean how you gon’ wipe it out from a whole generation of kids man you gon’ I don’t know man not allow it on playgrounds or something like that?
Ayesha: That word has been magnified for what? For what? It’s like what about what somebody done did?
Why are we using this word first of all? You know, a whole bunch of Black people we out there doing what selling drugs, we out there killing each other,
We out there pimpin’, we out there just, we not, we not together…Like in my city, Richmond, California it’s like all these youngsters don’t have nothing to do, we don’t have nothing to do. Every time that I done tried to go to get into some kind of program or something I have to go outside of my city. I guess like the system is designed to keep us separated so we don’t come together. And I feel like once we start fighting against it, I’m still not going to stop using that word.
Alana: But what do you think has happened to the discussion and the use of the word in recent light of people like Michael Richards and Don Imus?
Pendarvis: You said what does it do for the conversation or something like that? And it made me think dang, what if the word nigga was an industry right? Y’all gotta follow me on this one. So, what if the word nigga was an industry, right? And had a stock in the stock market. Everyday in the Wall Street Journal you could see how the word “nigga” was doing?
Like it’s up ten points because Don Imus used it. Or it’s down thirty points because we had a march on Washington cause people aren’t even thinking about the word. It’s obsolete for that day and what if you could just see it through history. Like I wonder, in the 1920’s when Blacks were affluent how the word was being used. And then I wonder like in 1995 when Def Row and Bad Boy was battling how it was doin? It’s probably just a steady stock. I’d invest in it because I don’t think it’s going nowhere.
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