Even just reading the word makes your cringe...Over the years I have been a staunch advocate of not using the word, "Nigger". My feeling was that it brought up too many terrible feelings associated with slavery, Jim Crow, dogs, fire hoses, etc. However, after watching Nas' new video, "Be a Nigger Too", I can now officially say that I have pulled a John McCain (flip-flopped). For those of you who haven't seen it nor heard the song, Nas touches on the word, it's origins and why we might be so afraid of it.
LINK .
Maybe it was me being young and now I'm grown, but I figured out that running from our past isn't the best thing to do to get over it. Instead, we should all embrace the good and the bad about our history...there's a great audio sample in Nas' song in which Paul Mooney asks (I'm paraphrasing), "How are white people going to ask us not to say the word when they made it up? And they made a song out of it! Eenie, meanie, minie, mo, catch a nigger by his toe..."
For those of you who think music (i.e. Hip-Hop) has gone downhill the past few years, well, you're correct. However, when artists like Nas come out with a song like this, which causes you to re-think the beliefs you had previously thought correct, it's a life-altering event. If I ever have the chance to meet Nas in person, I will tell him that that on June 10, 2008 at around 8:40 am, he changed my life. Thanks, Nasir.
