nah my nigga.

happy new year. i hope that all your resolutions are still in affect and will remain so throughout the year. it's been a hot one [minute], so i'm gonna get straight to it. i had an emotional break down today in front of my students. we were talking when one of the kids in my class turned to his classmate (both mexican) and said, 'right my nigga?!' immediately, i said 'don't let me hear you say that again, you don't need to speak that way.' the boy then got defensive and told me he didn't mean it that way, and became angry because of my attempts to correct him. before i knew it, through tears i was telling him that 'niggas' were the men and women hanging from the trees in the south. and 'niggas' were the men and women being treated like product on auction blocks. and today,
'niggas' are the men and women that are getting gunned down in the street everyday by police. and 'niggas' are the people who are disproportionately inhabiting the prisons in america. i was so upset and crying so hard that a colleague pulled me out of the room to calm down.

just let me say, i know that this careless use of the 'n-word', as it is so affectionately called, is not his fault. he is just a child so really he's just mimicking. in all of my emotion, i was trying to be informative realizing that he is purposely not educated about america's true history; in addition to the fact that we live in a culture where black history does not exist in the mainstream, making it no big deal to throw out the racial slurs that psychologically poisoned an entire race of people. it's cool even. it means you are hip and hard core when 'nigga' can just roll of off your tongue with no pause. people even feel a certain power when they say it--blacks and non-blacks alike.

truth is--i say it. whenever i feel like it (which is not in front of the children i teach--ever). not as much as i did when i was younger, but i do. i realize that is controversial, especially because i insist that if you are not black that word should never even cross your lips. i sum it up this way. as a black woman, a relatively young black woman, i have been called a nigger quite a few times in my life (an when i say 'nigger' you should know that it was said by non-blacks out of hatred). and there are not many non-blacks that can say that something like that has ever happened, or will ever happen to them. so, if one never has to experience the rage, shame, powerlessness and many other emotions that being called a 'nigger' places on you, then why is it okay to try and siphon from it the false sense of coolness that mainstream media has attached to it via the elimination of the reality of black experience in america? i mean, i can't even fix my lips to say, or force my hands to type some of the racial slurs that effect mexican people or any other race of people for that matter. and i don't ever think it will ever be cool for people completely outside of their cultural group to take those slurs and turn them in to greetings and affirmations. not even trying to do such a thing, in my opinion, shows a degree of respect for the struggles of another race of people, especially if you yourself are a member of an oppressed group. but respect, unfortunately, is something that black people do not get a lot of, from anywhere--even in our own classrooms.

...i'm just sayin

p.s. the spell check on my work computer is set up to spell the n-word 'correctly'...nigger, instead of nigga.