J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Just listening to Radio One whilst clearing my garage out, some rapper or another was on, didn't catch the name of the song but it had snatches of 'my definition' which I think was by De-la-Soul but several times during this song he said the N word, the one that rhymes with Bigger, there are many rap songs, welll most that use this term of 'endearment'.

Now this winds me up, at work (I work for Greater Manchester Police) I would be disciplined if I said this word and probably sacked, dont get me wrong I am not trying to subletly air prejudices against the black community, I have no problem with anyone apart from rapists, theives, vandals and child abusers whatever their colour but surely these rap artists are setting themselves back in their constant use of this word, how can the wider community allow what is now widely regarded by most as an offensive word to fall in to disuse ?

I appreciate their is a certain ironic element to it but like I say, if I were to utter it I would probably lose my job, yet a Radio tuned to Radio one can sit there amplifying it through the same office. What happens if as a lot of people do we are singing to ourselves in a daydream and we recite a section of a rap tune containing the word in question.

Would I be able to refer to my white mates as Honky, form a rap group and sing about Honkies, obviously this is ridiculous as most would wonder why we had arrived back in a seventies film but it illustrates my point.

Do normal, average black people (i.e. those not involved in music) cringe every time they hear the word in a song, I suspect most do.

FASTER MIKE!!

i think it depends on how old they are probably the older people that don't understand the 'endearment' bit, the lads that i know don't bat an eyelid but then there into hip hop/r n b so they understand, though i don't think they'd be to happy about being called it by someone whos white, which i think is more to do with the origans of the word.

mike

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I am aware of the origins of the word and the difference between a white person saying it and a black person saying it, what I am getting at is, if it is considered so offensive shouldnt it just be left to fall into disuse, how can equality and tolerance be expected if there are divisions based on language even though we speak the same language and live in the same communities ?

i.e if I were to say it to a black person it would be considered discriminatory, yet if one black person says it to another its not, so surely that in itself discriminates against anyone who isnt black ?

FASTER MIKE!!

yea i agree with what your saying, it seems to be a recent thing though last 20 years or so? but then it is more an american thing never heard anys brits saying it

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Yeah it is a recent thing Baby Boy, if you want to run with the big dogs and be boom bangin whilst spinning a joint you need to be down with the street, know what im sayin.

Sorry I appear to have a case 'Westwoods', innocently clearing the garage listening to the radio and I get infected.

I wonder where Westwood sits on this issue, he is a white man who appears to speak in a comedy pastiche of black street speak (for want of a better term), he does however not greet his guests with the 'term of endearment', oh well maybe he does but I can only stand it for so long, I think if he did it wouldnt be long before he got 'a cap busted in his ***',

Now thats a term that doesnt translate very well,

'Before he had a bullet shot into his bottom'

warrenm2

cant say "hes a good egg" or "nitty gritty" either in surrey.... both are racist...

Bubba po

The idea that black people use the word "******" to refer to members of their own racial group is rooted in empowerment; grabbing the previous term of hatred and abuse for themselves thereby castrating it and diminishing its power to offend. Gay people have done the same with "******" and "queer".

mart360

so agatha christie is racist??

it makes me laugh, we can be white honkys .. not racist play the white man not racist, whingin poms .. not racist ..

but dare we say ni**er p*ki etc, we are racist and pilloried and persecuted.

my two year old has a golliwog, and has been read bedtime stories about little bl*ck sa*bo, is he a racist?? bollox


it all boils down to a minority deciding what the majority can do.

imagine if i had posted old hook hazmzts head on the pig poster and displayed it?? i,d have had my collar felt, yet he could spout anti white crap outside the mosque under the banner of free speech??

it works both ways,

why is it that minoritys are fanatical, and tolerated and encouraged, and the masses are beaten down.

we have lost all sense of what is / isnt acceptable by a few ********* who think they know better.

vive the revolutiuon


Mart

289

Couldn't have said it better myself. Perfect summary, though I'd imagine that it'll go over a lot of heads.

289

Please tell me that you're a bit pissed on a Friday night and you don't really mean this.

mart360

what, that i get really arsed by the fact we can be butt fukced by every other race, nation, creed, colour, gender and religous persuasion, but dare we decide to say enough is enough and sling your hook, or call the kettle black so to speak, we are put through the ringer...

perrlease .. i,m as tolerant as they come, what i object to is being walked over and abused all in the name of political correctness.

prehaps if we brought back common sense and good old fashioned family values and policing, we wouldnt be in the situation we are in now..


and no i,m not pissed either.

welcome to scoobynet...


Mart

lightning101

Wash your mouth out

FASTER MIKE!!

Bubba po

Black people can use the word "******" because they have the right to remove it from the use of white racists. Often it was the last word some of their ancestors heard before a white supremacist poured petrol on them and applied a lighted match.


Hatred breeds hatred, Mart, and using inflammatory language to describe your fellow man is NOT the way forward. Unless you're a thug looking for a ruck, of course.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

'rooted in empowerment'

I can see your point (no, it doesnt go over my head) but does every group then have to pick a derogatory term and turn it round as a stick to beat the oppressor/former oppressor/oppressors great great grandson with ?

How does that move things on, it just propogates as a reminder of what used to happen until two hundred years ago, nobody alive today is personally responsible for the slave trade.


The bar of Soap pictured above shows how far things have moved on, just seeing that is shocking, my Grandma (aged 80) remembers buying clothes that had a label that reffered to the colour as being N***** brown, I couldnt quite beleive that but apparently it has been during my lifetime (born in 1970) and she says (but isnt sure) that it was a Marks and Spencer garment, I personally think its a lot earlier than the seventies but my mum confirms that this is correct, in that things were labelled this way.

I really dont want this thread to become an opportunity for a tirade, and I dont think we are 'butt f*cked' by everybody, I just feel there are some anomalies that are worthy of discussion, so far its been reasonably good natured so lets keep it that way, I am open to all ideas, I am prepared to have me viewpoint changed, Bubba Po put it really well but I am not 100% on that, I still think it discrimates back the other way.

lightning101

Quote: nobody alive today is personally responsible for the slave trade.



Apart from the guy hiring white liners

mart360

interesting,,

where in my post do i breed hatred??

because my son reads from a book i had as a child?? ,because he has a golliwog.. as does my niece and she is afro caribean, is she racist??

are robertsons guilty of racial abuse because they had golliwogs on the jam jars..

i see your argument, but be careful, by pushing your point, you are doing the same thing in reverse, you are creating racial discord from innocent situations.

hence my original comments, was agatha christie racist?? we had a tv series love thy neighbour, black and white minstral show, were these racist??

by definition of today probably yes, but when they were first shown no they wouldnt have been.

Most people are aware of the hidden symbolsism behind many of these items, but its the over the top witchunting and crucification that blows all out of proportion.

you rightly highlight strange situations that are in themselves minor..

blacks can call themselves *******, gays can call themselves *******.

yet we cant, can you see where i am coming from, we have created secular groups by trying to avoid offending them...

i believe the expression is "when in rome...." prehaps some of our other romans should take note


Mart

Bubba po

Point one: What Earthly purpose can be served by a white person using the word "******", thes days?

Point two: Today's youth are no more educated as to the origins or reasons for the use of the word "******" in Black American culture than they are to the reasons why McDonald's restaurants plague our country. They just affect it as part of the argot of their social group. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't moderate our own use of language.

I don't want to call our cities "Personchester" or "Ethnicminoritypool". I don't want our country to be flooded with people who bring nothing but a financial burden, either. Neither do I want to send Curry back where it came from...

Scare stories and racist propaganda are just those things, and nothing more. Humans in all walks of life and levels of power sometimes advocate insane stuff- its our job, then, to be good neighbours to our neighbours and stand up to people who compromise our neighbourliness, wherever we see their influence.


Well, that's my view, anyway.

Bubba po

Whoa, mate, you're on the defensive, there... I never said you did. I meant it is all our responsibility to moderate our language towards each other.

mart360

I agree,

if your going to integrate cultures, they must be understanding on both sides, some values may change some may not, if you choose to live under someone elses rules you must accept them. hence when in rome..

unfortunantly certain factions seem to forget this..


blazing saddles anyone!!


M

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Point one: What Earthly purpose can be served by a white person using the word "n***r", thes days?

There isnt a point, it is a word I will never use because I have been shown it causes offence, I am not looking for authorisation to use the word, I am just having trouble getting my head round it being virtually illegal for me to say it (it being classed as a Hate crime), yet rap acts can sprinkle it liverally into songs that are played by radio stations, my kids hear it, none of them has said it but they are getting older and I will have to try and explain that its ok for 50 cent, Snoop or any other rapper to say it but they must not.

Mankand has a history of being barbaric, the slave trade was only one example of just how unpleasant, the Holocaust, The Killing Fields, The Spanish Inquisition and several more recent events just proove as a species how evil we can be to each other, do we really need to keep derogatory terms in use for empowerment, I think that argument falls flat as most of the rappers are too worried about the aquisition of money, Bentley's, women, booze and guns to give much thought to the origins of the word (perhaps its subconcious ?), if you refer to women as 'Bitches' and 'Ho's' in your lyrics its very difficult to claim credibility for using the N word because it empowers you whilst you are demeaning women.