Don’t let Gwyneth Paltrow get your chin dislocated.
There is no such thing as a nigger pass if you are not a Black person. Let me qualify that by saying not in my neck of the woods.
I don’t care if you are a brown person (minority that does not also identify as Black), you don’t get to use the word nigger. Not around me.
In cosmetology school I almost got expelled. Thankfully I did not because my old ass was too old to be fighting the little Puerto Rican girl who at lunch asked about a mutual acquaintance of ours and when told about his situation said: “That’s fucked up…he’s my nigga.”
I spelled it differently because she meant it in the manner I spelled it. I didn’t give a shit.
She tried to explain that it was a part of her culture.
She tried to explain that because of the decade + age difference I didn’t understand that the word was no longer a curse and everyone could use it now.
I didn’t listen. If you have a similar argument, you can keep it, I will not listen to you either.
If you are not a Black man or woman you do not get to say the word nigger (or any variation of it) around me.
Paltrow tweeted Niggas in Paris for real. She is fortunate she did not do it within ear shot of me.
One of the secrets of hip hop is that while it awakened the rest of America to the callous use of the word in Black America, we’ve been saying it to one another for years.
You see I will be 40 in October, I recall a time when hip hop didn’t stream through the speakers of your local radio station and there was no XM Radio. Before GrandMaster Flash and Run DMC, Blacks have used the word nigger in our own circles among our own people.
Oprah & ‘dem might be mad at hip hop for exposing that dirty little secret but its out now.
Blacks using the word nigger while not terribly desirable is acceptable, to me at least. It’s something that I can do that you can not. Yes it is a double standard and no I do not give a fuck, nor will I attempt to give a fuck.
It is our word to use or not in the same manner my uterus is mine to use or not. You don’t get to borrow it because you are a cool person, at least not without me consenting to it.
Newsflash to Paltrow and all of the other “cool” White folks out there, I will not consent.
I suppose I could break it down why I would consent for Nas to say it and not be thrilled that he defends Paltrow tweeting it, but I will not do that tonight. Shit I may not do it any other night either. It is my word, you can not have it, you can not use it, I don’t even want you lip synching it at karaoke night.
In fact, I don’t want you to even read it to yourself as you read this blog. When I type nigger, you see this nigger got it?
Rap artists have come forward to say that they know what Paltrow meant. Well I don’t and I am intelligent. I know what she says she meant, and I know what people think she meant. That is irrelevant though because I know what she said (or typed) and I ain’t gonna be able to do it.
To my non Black friends, I don’t love you any less because you are non Black. I will love you less though if you say nigger around me.
To the non Blacks reading this that are not my friend, don’t let your liberal Black friends lull you into a false sense of security. All of us are not tolerant, and your liberal Black friends defending your honor can get some ass kick too if they want to tell me to allow you to use that word, around me.