Contributed by Andrea Graham on 3/20/08

Nas’s upcoming album has yet to be released but has already garnered its share of controversy due to the LP’s provocative title: Nigger. The epithet has historically been used as a pejorative term for people of African ancestry in the United States and is still interpreted as so by many African Americans from the civil rights era. It is therefore no surprise that the NAACP and the Reverend Jesse Jackson have publicly denounced the album title as deeply offensive and dishonorable. Nas, however, has responded to his detractors by stating, “Right now, [the hip-hop generation is] on a whole new movement. We’re taking [the] power from that word.” Although it seems like there will always be some level of dissension over the use of the “n-word” between the older and younger generation, the album title does implicitly propose a thought-provoking question: Can shifting attitudes within the hip hop generation generate a racial climate of change where the negativity of the word “nigger” will become obsolete?

The Reverend Jesse Jackson is quoted in a news release as saying, “[Nas using] the N-word [as an album title] is morally offensive and socially distasteful.” Although Nas may be the most recent proponent of using the title as a step toward taming the ugliness of the word, civil rights activist and comedian, Dick Gregory, beat him to the punch decades earlier with an autobiography by the same name, Nigger. The epithet has also made its way into the prominent works of fellow black artists ranging from Robert DeCoy, author of The Nigger Bible, and Richard Pryor to Dave Chappelle and N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude). The word “nigger,” however, has still maintained its sting over the years despite such attempts at purging the word of its negative connotations.

It is only in the hip hop generation where the word (or rather the word’s variant “nigga”) is being used colloquially as a term of endearment. The word is even starting to be used fairly liberally (and to the same effect) by young white people and other young non-black people of color because of the widespread influence of hip hop culture. It is debatable, however, whether the hip hop generation is just becoming desensitized to the word or whether the word itself is really losing its meaning. The fact that most black people still feel angry and demoralized when the word “nigger” is aimed at them is a testament to word’s power. The only reason that “nigga” is increasingly being perceived as “nigger’s” friendlier bastard brother is because the hip hop movement has attempted to reclaim the word through commercialization; the repetition of the word, in essence, is supposed to help remove the negativity from it. This mode of reasoning, however, is ultimately fallible because racism is so embedded in our culture that it has (and will) continue to keep the terrible sting of the epithet alive. A supposedly “harmless” word like “nigga,” for example, can quickly have its meaning revert back to its negative origins when a white person aims it at a black person in malice.

There are some people, however, that will argue that the hip hop generation—the demographic in which Nas is targeting his new album—has progressed beyond the racism of its forefathers. The argument fails to acknowledge the covert racism that still takes place in our society and instead, perpetuates the myth that America is a colorblind nation. The hip hop industry, for example, has continued to operate on this nefarious relationship where white owned corporations profit off black artists reenacting a kind of ‘minstrel show’ for its white consumer base. It is not just a mere coincidence that the word “nigga” has become an industry standard for selling records. Whites seem to take pleasure from the fact that hip hop grants them access (albeit a complex and ambiguous type of access) to a forbidden word. And why, one may ask, are whites that are raised in a period of such “racial tolerance” so fervently eager to reintroduce this historically heinous word back into the American lexicon? It is perhaps because whites subconsciously feel a level of satisfaction when they can call blacks the very word some are identifying with as a badge of honor—a “nigga,” or in essence, a “nigger.”

In a nation where blacks make up the majority of victims of racially motivated hate crimes (see the FBI’s UCR statistics), there is a danger in making the word “nigger” an ubiquitous term. Hip hop’s commercialization of the word “nigga” has already given rise to a phenomenon where whites are increasingly using hip hop as a scapegoat to use racist, anti-black language. In 2006, for example, The New York Times covered the trial of Nicholas Minucci, a 19-year old white male accused of beating a young black man with a baseball bat while yelling the “n-word.” Minucci’s lawyers argued that their client, “growing up around hip-hop culture and rap music, [regularly] uses the epithet as a benign form of address,” and therefore should not be charged with a hate crime. The case bears witness to the manner in which whites are able to perpetuate racism by subscribing to a malleable definition of the “n-word.” It is evident that hip hop’s—“I can say it (meaning the “n-word”) but you (meaning whites) can’t”—philosophy has provided whites with a loophole where they can always cite ignorance as an excuse to use the word “nigger.”

The word “nigger” ultimately continues to be problematic because, on some level, it still carries the powerful implications of hatred and contempt for black people. The negative connotations of the epithet cannot be cleansed in a nation that refuses to acknowledge its guilt in the perpetuation of personal and institutionalized racism. The conditions therefore cease to exist to allow the word to conform to a more positive (or neutral) definition.

RELATED CONTENT

• • Hip-hop at a crossroads

  • Ron Paul Supporters Use the Internet to ‘Defeat’ Mainstream Media [iconflict.com]

  • Nelly Vs. America, They “Wanna End The Glorification & Not End The Problem” [sohh.com]

  • Great Expectations: Why big donors back Teach for America [slate.com]

  • BET Debates Hip Hop In New Series