man.... that is the most irritating thing..... people are like "there are white niggers, hispanic niggers, asian niggers..... a nigger is just an ignaorant person..." yeah, sure. when was the last time an entire population of ignorant people was given such a degrading term to describe them? IGNORANT PERSON: any member of the KU KLUX KLAN. my mother looks very...um, well, not black but .. i dont really know to be honest!! she is very exotic to say the least (very deep, olive complexion, green eyes, very thick, wiry hair...anyone out there look like that? maybe you can tell me what she is!!) but people have reffered to her with that word so many times i have lost count, and no one was reffering to ignorance and every one said it to piss me off, which worked like a charm. my baby sister was half black, and she passed from SIDS as an infant and my own father (we had different fathers) had called her a "nigger baby" before she was even born. the way i see it, if that word has caused me that much pain and rage INDIRECTLY, it must be truly insulting to the black man, woman, and child who has to deal with it DIRECTLY, every day of their lives, and it is is an imbecile of epic proportions who believes that that word means anything OTHER than a destructive, hateful slur towards blacks. whixh brings me to that dictionary definition, #2, well, whoever john aquilino is, he is an idiot of the highest order, because that is a very pale comparison to make (no pun intended) and james baldwin seems to be on the low end of the comprehension spectrum (i.e., he REALLY doesnt get it) and.. forget it.
what about other slurs aimed at other people groups? of course, most of these do not carry the stigma and history of "the n word", but it does seem like there is a double standard, at least where i live, because MANY blacks here in so. california seem to think that it is ok to make remarks towards other groups. case in point, a black friend of mine told me i was a disgrace because i didnt speak spanish ( i am roughly 1/4 spanish, however the physical traits seem to have taken over!) and that it was sad that i didnt speak the language. so i said, well, do you speak african? he was seriously heated over that remark. . . . because for some reason, "it was different" .... ok, how? i have never been to spain, or set foot on mexican soil (since every brown skin person without slanted eyes in southern california is mexican), just as he had never been to africa.................. anyhow, this was simply the example that came to mind..... so what about homosexuals? is it o.k to call them faggots? is it ok to refer to women as bitches and hos? i know that this issue (the "n" word) extends well beyond hip hop, but the hip hop community is all militant and up in arms about that word and racism, and profiling, and rightfully so, but is OK to say faggot and bitch and ho and be like "thats not meant that way, its really meant this way" or about how it flowed well, or whatever..... i just think that we all need to look in the mirror when we have these types of offenses, because we are all (likely) guilty of a similar offense to someone else at some point... but we have a million excuses as to why it was ok for us to say what we said, and to who we said it to or about, or how this word is worse for this reason........... so why is that?