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Just Another Dead
Nigger!
By Wise Intelligent
Recently the NAACP held a ceremonial
burying the infamous word NIGGER! The funeral was
complete with horse drawn chariots, mourners,
pallbearers dressed in black and an eerie wooden coffin
draped with black roses. It was like a Reality TV scene
out of Tales from the Hood. Add the media to the
equation, and only Puffy Combs could have thrown a
bigger party. All jokes aside, I wonder if the NAACP
realizes that their burying of the word NIGGER is, in
fact, late! They are late by about 400 years or so
because white supremacy has long since buried the word
NIGGER and all of its connotations and characteristics
in the hearts and minds of America and ALL of its
people!
Although I understand the symbolic burying of the "N"
word, I am afraid its just another case of us black
people in America expending our manpower and resources
to attack issues that are mere symptoms of a deeper and
greater, more threatening problem. We can post
billboards all over the country, march and hold funerals
for dehumanizing words coming out of the mouths of our
people (elders, youth, entertainers, male, female, etc.)
from now into infinity, but until we find the strength
of character to face the environment that created the
word and the attributes of a NIGGER, we are just kidding
ourselves, and amusing the rest of the world in the
process!
Hip Hop and/or rappers did not create
or embed the word, epithet or diatribe into the American
heart and psyche. The word NIGGER as used by NWA (who I
would give credit for propagating its use in Hip Hop on
a mainstream level), was used to express the prevailing
attitude of black people in this country for centuries
before NWA or even Hip Hop was conceived. That attitude
being that regardless of what a black man in America
does, achieve, accomplish or fails to do, he is, in the
eyes of the white-power-structure, still a NIGGER! I
mean NWA stood for Niggaz wit Attitudes. Did you ever
ask yourself, what did they have an attitude about? They
were pissed off about the poverty, drugs, gangs, mis-education,
joblessness, and police brutality that they were born
and raised in and forced to deal with on a daily basis.
So unless we are ready to have another funeral next week
for white supremacy and its entire educational,
financial, scientific, and spiritual systems these mock
ceremonies will never produce any REAL results!
The word Nigger and all of the
negative stereotypes that come with it has been beat
into our heads and hearts so much that the belief held
by most black men in America is that whether I'm an
athlete, rapper, actor/actress, professor, doctor,
lawyer, beggar or thief, to the white power structure in
which I am embedded, I am just a NIGGER who can run, a
NIGGER who can act, a NIGGER with a degree, habit, or
criminal record. All things considered, in spite of my
vocation, I am still just a NIGGER! And this is another
reason they chose the name NWA (Niggaz With an
Attitude).
The N-Word is apart of the cancerous disease of
white-supremacy and racism that has yet to be faced and
exorcised out of Americas "inward parts." Why are we so
afraid to face this fact? Why are we so afraid to go
beyond the effects and attack the causes? Why can't we
have two groups? One to deal with all the NIGGERS and
all of their foul words and other group to bum rush and
burn down the racist American system that created all of
this bullshit from the jump! Symbolic funerals,
billboards and the attached assault on Hip Hop are about
as effective as burying your bills instead of paying
them and dealing with your reckless spending habits that
got you into debt in the first place!
Black people of all ages, genders and occupations have
been using the word nigger in the exact same way in
which slave-traffickers beat it into their ancestors for
260 years of chattel slavery, 100 years of lynching, Jim
Crow, etc., ad infinitum. The deeper problem, I find
when building with young black youth in America, is
IDENTITY! This lack of identity is a direct result of
slavery and its institutionalized, systemic method of
stripping black people of their heritage, language
culture, families and God. This begs the question, "If I
am not a NIGGER what am I?"
Let me just keep this real clean for
you: we were not NIGGERS until we went thru the process
of Niggerization at the hands of white supremacy. We
were not even BLACK until we encountered white-men. The
same goes for bywords and proverbs like NEGRO, COLORED,
JIGABOO, SAMBO, BUCK, etc. Before we discovered
white-men we donned the names of our ancestors,
ancestral place or places of origin. Lack of identity
has caused divisions along frivolously superficial lines
amongst a people who know not from whence they came.
Dr. Bobby Wright said that "if you
don't know where you're going, any road will get you
there." So, when you ask your seven closest black
friends "what's your nationality?" you'll more than
likely get seven different answers: "I'm Black" or "I'm
African" or "I'm African-American" or "I'm Christian" or
"I'm Muslim" or "I'm a Blood" or "I'm a Crip"—everything
from colors to religions. Then there's the cop-out or
anxiety avoidance responses, "race doesn't matter" or "I
just don't see color." We have been turned around and
upside down for so long that we would rather be an
abstraction, a non-entity, or invisible before we dare
to go back and claim who we were before Kunta Kinte was
forced to call himself Toby! Black man and woman your
race does matter! White-supremacy taught you that YOUR
race does not matter and is in fact worthless in
comparison to other races; especially white ones. This
is why they continue to target YOUR race with all forms
of genocide in the form of CIA/COCAINE, Eugenics
Programs, Tuskegee Experiments, Unfair Drug Laws, Prison
Industrial Complex, etc. Your race does not matter and
this is why it is on the verge of extinction!
Concerning the issue of IDENTITY or
the lack thereof, let's take our leaders for instance.
Being that this article highlights the NAACP's burying
of the "N" word we can use the organization as our first
example. How is it that in 2007 you are still the
National Association for the Advancement of "COLORED"
People? The term "colored" was used by whites to serve
the same purpose as the word NIGGER; that is, to
dehumanize and disconnect you from your heritage!
Let's use our well respected elder Al
Sharpton for our next example. Earlier this year when
Sharpton discovered that his ancestors were possibly
slaves owned by the racist Strom Thurmond's ancestors he
said in an appearance on The Daily Show with John
Stewart concerning the revelation, "a guy asked me for
an autograph: first time in my life I had to think about
the reason I'm named that, is because my great
grandfather was owned by someone named Jefferson
Sharpton, who was married to Julia Thurmond Sharpton."
This is a leader of the black community saying that he
had not before 2007 thought about the reason his last
name was Sharpton?
How can the leader not know? If Al Sharpton, the leader
of the assault on Don Imus and the subsequent assault on
Hip Hop for its use of the word NIGGER, did not know, or
ever consider how he came to be Al Sharpton until
February of 2007, how in hell can we expect the average
young man, woman, and child to know who they were before
they were called NIGGERS!
What we must admit is that this IDENTITY problem is a
pandemic crisis in the black reality and the root of
many, if not all, of our woes! We know that in order to
deal with the real causes of our problems as a people we
must confront our past. And that requires that we
confront the enemies of that past. Our FEAR of
confronting those who are responsible for kidnapping,
enslaving, dehumanizing and niggerizing our people is
indicated by our behavior. All the talk about banning
the "N" Word, degrading women and Hip Hop are all
cleverly calculated evasions of the deeper problem.
Getting rid of the Joe Camel cigarette ads did not stop
people from smoking or cure the people of lung cancer
and burying the N-word will not stop our young black men
and women from seeing themselves and believing that they
are NIGGERS!
So now that the movement to destroy
the NIGGERS and all of his offensive words is in full
effect, will their be an equally intensive effort to
destroy the NIGGER makers and all of their NIGGER
inducing systems? In other words, after we get rid of
Frankenstein are we going to confront and get rid of Dr.
Frankenstein as well? Now that we've buried the N-word,
what are we going to replace it with? Are we ready to go
back and find out who and what we were before the
Niggerization process stole our minds, bodies, and
souls? Are we ready to go back to when Hip Hop tried to
motivate black youth to call each other, "Brother," "Sista,"
"Young Ladies," "Beloved," "King," "Queen," "Africans,"
"Gods," "Earths" and "Goddess" back in the late 80's and
early 90's?
Are we ready to bury the SICKCO
American mentality that created the NIGGER and all his
words to undermine African rebellion, revolution, unity,
revolt, and rebirth? Are we ready to deal with the
reality that it was a tragic mistake to let your enemy
teach and train your children? Are we ready to be about
the business of building for ourselves regardless of
what "old-wounds" that may be "re-opened" (although they
have never been closed)? Are we ready to make all
efforts to take 100% control of the education, economics
and politics of our people regardless of who that course
of action may offend? Because if we're NOT ready to do
all of those things and MORE after we get back home from
the mock funeral for the N-word, then I'll conclude this
with the words of my great aunts, uncles, mother, father
and grandparents... NIGGA PLEASE!
Sources:
Recording artist Wise Intelligent can be reached through
his
blog/
Black Agenda Report /
Detroit News
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Responses
"There is no
point in burying the word if the behavior is not going
to be buried along with it," said Winifred Baker, 52, of
Eastpointe. "We're burying the symbol but we're not
changing the problem."—Detroit
News
Symbolically
burying derogatory symbols shows how we are more about
symbolical displays than substantive work. You'd think
that the NAACP would find projects much more suitable
that will appeal to those who most need their help. To
focus or attack language use of the poor and the
ignorant only points out our own impotency to deal with
our oppressors who deal with us as if we were niggers
Some of the
rhetoric used in connection with this ceremony borders
on what one might call ritual magic. Coming out of the
mouths of politicians, who are supposed to provide us
more practical solutions to our problems, makes me toss
my voter's card in the trashcan. Don't we have enough
magicians?
"So today we aren't
just burying the N-word," said Detroit Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick. "We're taking this out of our spirit, we're
taking it out of our being; we're taking it out of our
minds. …
"We gather burying
all the things that go with the N-word. We have to bury
the 'pimps' and the 'hos' that go with it. … Die N-word,
and we don't want to see you 'round here no more!"—Rudy
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Rahim, you are
right. The guys in Baltimore City Jail considered the
whole thing a joke. There was even talk that as soon as
Nigger was buried, it was brought back to life by a
Gangsta Rapper faith healer employed by various
white-owned record companies. It is even said that this
Gangsta Rapper faith healer has been retained by the
aforementioned record companies to resurrect "bitches'
and "whores” in case there is another attempt by the
NAACP (Niggas Ain't At All Capable of Progress) to cause
their untimely death. Instead of burying the word niggas,
let's try to resurrect the manhood of our young men!!!—amin
sharif
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posted 1 August 2007 |
