"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
~ U.S. Constitution, 1st Amendment
Just because a white guy decides to call a group of black women "nappy-headed hoes," Russell Simmons decides that the word Nigga should not be used in Hip Hop. Just because a friend and fellow comedian screams Nigga in a comedy club, Paul Mooney decides that the infamous Nigga consistently used as a punchline for his jokes will no longer fall from his lips. Nigga this. Nigga that. Black people continue to disappoint me. I am sitting over here, I guess, an ocean removed from the sting of the word Nigga, and no I will not give our oppressors' translation "the N-word," and the word does not bother me the way it incites our "black leaders." Al Sharpton lost the presidential candidacy a few years ago and there have not been too many black outcries lately, so he always strikes up the band with any utterance of Nigga when it is not coming from our side. All of the many black issues that breed and flourish in America are repeatedly ignored by everyone. Yet, if someone says something to offend us, there is an uproar. Well I said it, Nigga, and I will say it again and again. Brothers and sisters continue to be upset with me, but I will not stop using it until we stop using it because of an internal struggle, not an outward one. Yet, I suggest you still read on.
Honestly, Paul Mooney put it best before his Nigga abandonment, "Everybody wanna be a Nigga, but don't nobody wanna be a Nigga." This one statement summarizes why other people use Nigga, they want to fit in. Black people have set the trend of what is hip, cool, in, happening, and fabulous for generations, from Cab Calloway to Aretha Franklin to Nasir Jones. However, the ushering in of the largely successful genre of Hip Hop has changed all of that. Hip Hop blurred the line of who is to use the word and who is not. However, Hip Hop has become music spit on the streets of New York, on the dirt roads of Tanzania, and even under the bright lights found in Tokyo. It is international, it slides around the world on the coattails of America's globalization efforts. Hence, Nigga ceases to belong to Blacks in America, but to an array of people worldwide of a spectrum of colors. Most importantly, the white kid from the suburbs feels just as entitled to use the word because they grew up listening to Niggaz With Attitude. This is when it hits home because that white kid cannot be cool or fit in if he does not spit all the lyrics, even if words like "young Nigga got it bad 'cause I'm brown," simply do not apply to him. That kid wants the cool privilege of saying Nigga, but he would never want to be caught in South Central L.A. with his feet spread and hands in the air while being read his rights by the LAPD.
Every so often Nigga becomes an issue and the catalyst this year was Don Imus's comments on the way the Rutgers' women's basketball team looked. It is amazing how everyone clung to the phrase "nappy-headed hoes," but did not listen to what he said afterwards, "the girls from Tennessee's they all look cute...kind of like a Spike Lee thing, the Jiggaboos versus the Wannabees." Essentially, Imus's comments demonstrate that white people really think they understand black people completely. He thought that black people would describe those women as such and he thought that Spike Lee's scene in School Daze not Do the Right Thing, was about ugly black women versus beautiful black women. In both cases he is wrong. Growing up I did hear my parents use Nigga, but I never heard them call anyone a "nappy-headed hoe." Words like the latter predominately came into existent in a 90s world where black women had already bore the pain of having to sport hair that is kinkier than others for centuries but were now hoes because they were continuously labeled gold diggers and Welfare queens. A younger generation reacting to the way black women are represented in the media and the way some women carried themselves in their community made the word "ho" a stamp of approval in Hip Hop lyrics. So Oprah and the like thought that Hip Hop was at fault for all of this, not Don Imus's racist ideals. Especially since, the first introduction of the word "ho" was from whoever he was talking with, he simply added "the nappy-headed" part. Yet in still, since all of this prompted blacks to want to revoke Hip Hop artist's Nigga card, would everyone be as passionate to take Spike Lee's poetic license from him for introducing Jiggaboos and Wannabees to America?
Since it is long after the Imus incident, readers must wonder why am I writing this? It is actually in reaction to one of my favorite comedians, Paul Mooney's article in the June Essence magazine explaining why he will no longer use the word Nigga. His epiphany came after his friend comedian Michael Richards screamed the word repeatedly at black men interrupting his show. Again black people in this case were hung up on the obvious obscenities, the word Nigga. When I saw it, what made me see that Richards had long packed away some racist emotions were what he said in the midst of his shower of Niggas. "Shut up! Fifty years ago, we'd have you upside down, with a f**king fork up your a**!" Richards even claims that what is buried away is shocking, and it was. Paul Mooney's relationship with this man inhibited him from seeing him for the racist he is, which is understandable. No one wants to believe that they are friends with a racist, and even Richards does not want to believe he is a racist. To me, there is a difference between using Nigga and creating imagery of lynching and white mob behavior against Blacks. Whites continue to hide their racist-tendencies behind the freedom of speech that should be allowed for what they must call the N-word. However, in what world do Blacks have to express their freedom of speech and use what they reclaimed as theirs?
Should Nigga be abolished? Maybe. If that day does come I want it to be because Blacks realized that this word does more harm to us because of internal issues, not ones where white media figures slip and expose that they are racist. These singular events only make us feel we should censor ourselves in an effort to help white people control their racist tendencies. So we continue to hide behind the phrase "the N-word" instead of confronting the real word that really exposes our internal scars of classism and measurements of inferiority to whites demonstrated by skin tones. This only shows that we are still slaves. When Prince had his battle with Warner Bros. he became an acronym, T.A.F.K.A.P., more so than a symbol and put the word slave on his cheek. Prince felt that he did not own the music and creativity that he poured out in every studio session for his then upcoming album; he felt he was a slave. He could not be Prince, so he became the artist formerly known as Prince, and that is exactly what "the N-word," the word formerly known as Nigger or Nigga. We keep talking around it and waiting for white people to make it an issue for us, we make Nigga purely reactionary. To me, our using Nigga for so long was black people demonstrating our agency and using the white man's words to be empowering or to make us laugh. Black people then knew you are going to be called a Nigger anyway, but when they wanted to hear it, they wanted it with love not hatred. Since most whites would not dare use Nigger, to our faces, we forget this. This is just my theory but there is a black power about that word. The reclamation of our circumstance, of our tribulation demonstrates that black power is not just making black positive, but also making what whites created to be negative for us positive as well. For me, Nigga will continue to fall from my lips. The arguments out there have not convinced me. The push for Nigga's abolishment has always been external, maybe if a riff outside of the classist realm comes from within I may change my mind. But until then, Nigga Nigga Nigga.
Furaha.
P.S. This sista is trying to pull herself out of laziness, bear with me. I will start to write more.
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
The Inauguration
I know...I know
Some places we can go, some places we can go
I know...I know!
Some places we can go, some places we can go
Do you wanna ride... with me?
~ Jay-Z, "Do You Wanna Ride"
Dear Black America,
As I walk the streets of London daily, passing Picadilly Circus, strolling in Trafalgar Square, and bustling through Brixton, I can only think of you, all of you. Often I find myself explaining where I come from, who my tribe is, the forgotten tribe of America. My presence here has redefined me. Furaha in America, is African-American, not American. Here, when I open my mouth to speak, everyone hears an American, though at home it is African-American. So as I embark upon my adult life and experience being young, black, and in London, I constantly reflect on how wide that hyphen is between the African and the American for us as a people, as wide as the Atlantic Ocean, but London is bridging the gap.
America's borders are brimming with immigrants. Everyone who lives there once was an immigrant, even the Native-Americans who crossed the Bering Strait. To ask immigrants why they came to America, answers would reflect thoughts of freedom of religion for those on the Mayflower, means to support family members for those who made it North of the Border from Mexico, or to simply attend school for the many Nigerians now in Texas. Yet, if you think outside of the word immigrant and were to ask all Americans, there would be some whose answer would lack a theme of a better opportunities. For the millions of African-Americans who have lived in America for centuries, they did not come by choice, but force. When they arrived, education was denied. When they came, the labor they found gave no wages. When the traveled here there was no road or planes, and the Mayflower for them was not flowery. Still, African-Americans are in America, have built America, but are thought to believe they are not Americans.
My entire life I have defined myself as African-American, a type of American. Most Italians, Irish, and Polish consider themselves American too, but their type was not always necessary. They are white. They belong in America. When I traveled to Tanzania last year, people would ask me where I came from. Saying America or Marekani seemed false because I had black skin, black hair, black features, I could not be from America. The only way to explain to them that yes I am American is to say that my mother, my grandmother, and before were all born in America. Then the Tanzanians would consider me American. So, how many generations of black people will have to live in America, to be Americans? We are consistently set apart, segregated by terms, but not by law. And I learned that I was American, once I left America.
Since our immigration, how many of us see past 125th Street or beyond our small town in the South? While America's land stretches from one ocean to another and its mass appears double stacked like a Big Mac between Canada and Mexico, few of us travel to even see the mountains, prairies or oceans white with foam. And even if you did, there will ring a consistent reminder that you are still just black. Driving from Philadelphia to New York would bring New Jersey state troopers profiling. Walking down the wrong road at night in Mississippi could cause rednecks to rustle. And since we see so little of America, we see an even smaller proportion of the rest of the world, which extends much greater than this beloved land. As long as these borders envelop us, we remain just black, or for them, we remain just niggers.
After living in Tanzania for three months and living in London for seven months I have developed a sense of ownership for America. I love America, the place, not the institution. America remains the place of our people, the lost tribe of Africans who made something out of nothing when they arrived. America caught up with the Queen and created a strong empire with a fraction of the history on the backs of blacks who worked without wages for most of that short history. That stretch of time with profit margins longer than Appalachian trail made America the strong force it is today. My people, our people, built this country, but we can never see this effort as long as we are trapped inside blinded by America's borders.
My time here in London has carved a new identity for me and offered me a new mirror to view myself. Before I was made to believe that I was a color or a descent, but now I realize how American I am and how much all of us are entitled to that massive piece of land. This entitlement has given me a spirit of confidence that keeps me focused on you, Black America, for we are the forgotten tribe. While we all cannot free ourselves from the bounds of the United, but disunited States, take this trip with me. When I left America, my community came with me, all of you did. So until we can all see beyond the borders and limitations that were set for us when our ancestors rocked on ships and landed in America, use the internet and me as your travel guide.
I miss you. I love you.
Furaha.
Some places we can go, some places we can go
I know...I know!
Some places we can go, some places we can go
Do you wanna ride... with me?
~ Jay-Z, "Do You Wanna Ride"
Dear Black America,
As I walk the streets of London daily, passing Picadilly Circus, strolling in Trafalgar Square, and bustling through Brixton, I can only think of you, all of you. Often I find myself explaining where I come from, who my tribe is, the forgotten tribe of America. My presence here has redefined me. Furaha in America, is African-American, not American. Here, when I open my mouth to speak, everyone hears an American, though at home it is African-American. So as I embark upon my adult life and experience being young, black, and in London, I constantly reflect on how wide that hyphen is between the African and the American for us as a people, as wide as the Atlantic Ocean, but London is bridging the gap.
America's borders are brimming with immigrants. Everyone who lives there once was an immigrant, even the Native-Americans who crossed the Bering Strait. To ask immigrants why they came to America, answers would reflect thoughts of freedom of religion for those on the Mayflower, means to support family members for those who made it North of the Border from Mexico, or to simply attend school for the many Nigerians now in Texas. Yet, if you think outside of the word immigrant and were to ask all Americans, there would be some whose answer would lack a theme of a better opportunities. For the millions of African-Americans who have lived in America for centuries, they did not come by choice, but force. When they arrived, education was denied. When they came, the labor they found gave no wages. When the traveled here there was no road or planes, and the Mayflower for them was not flowery. Still, African-Americans are in America, have built America, but are thought to believe they are not Americans.
My entire life I have defined myself as African-American, a type of American. Most Italians, Irish, and Polish consider themselves American too, but their type was not always necessary. They are white. They belong in America. When I traveled to Tanzania last year, people would ask me where I came from. Saying America or Marekani seemed false because I had black skin, black hair, black features, I could not be from America. The only way to explain to them that yes I am American is to say that my mother, my grandmother, and before were all born in America. Then the Tanzanians would consider me American. So, how many generations of black people will have to live in America, to be Americans? We are consistently set apart, segregated by terms, but not by law. And I learned that I was American, once I left America.
Since our immigration, how many of us see past 125th Street or beyond our small town in the South? While America's land stretches from one ocean to another and its mass appears double stacked like a Big Mac between Canada and Mexico, few of us travel to even see the mountains, prairies or oceans white with foam. And even if you did, there will ring a consistent reminder that you are still just black. Driving from Philadelphia to New York would bring New Jersey state troopers profiling. Walking down the wrong road at night in Mississippi could cause rednecks to rustle. And since we see so little of America, we see an even smaller proportion of the rest of the world, which extends much greater than this beloved land. As long as these borders envelop us, we remain just black, or for them, we remain just niggers.
After living in Tanzania for three months and living in London for seven months I have developed a sense of ownership for America. I love America, the place, not the institution. America remains the place of our people, the lost tribe of Africans who made something out of nothing when they arrived. America caught up with the Queen and created a strong empire with a fraction of the history on the backs of blacks who worked without wages for most of that short history. That stretch of time with profit margins longer than Appalachian trail made America the strong force it is today. My people, our people, built this country, but we can never see this effort as long as we are trapped inside blinded by America's borders.
My time here in London has carved a new identity for me and offered me a new mirror to view myself. Before I was made to believe that I was a color or a descent, but now I realize how American I am and how much all of us are entitled to that massive piece of land. This entitlement has given me a spirit of confidence that keeps me focused on you, Black America, for we are the forgotten tribe. While we all cannot free ourselves from the bounds of the United, but disunited States, take this trip with me. When I left America, my community came with me, all of you did. So until we can all see beyond the borders and limitations that were set for us when our ancestors rocked on ships and landed in America, use the internet and me as your travel guide.
I miss you. I love you.
Furaha.
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