I want to premise this post by saying that this is not an attack. This is not an “anti” anything post. This #blog is merely asking for self-reflection and understanding.
Let me explain something. Yes, Black people have our own #culture, we have our own words, our own styles, etc. Why? Because not even 60 years ago, in most of this country we couldn’t own our houses, we couldn’t own a business, and our credit was lowered merely because we were black. This was mostly due to redlining, and that doesn’t even include other circumstantial racial predicaments that the early put Blacks in every day. The above happened because not even 200 years ago we didn’t even own our bodies.
So we talked our own talk. Walked our own walk. We sang our own songs. And the majority of whites complacent in our oppression did not care for generations. But we took that talk, that walk, those songs, and that thingthat no one else could replicate for some reason, and we made THAT our business. We were the ones who invented being yourself for a living at a time where everyone thought you had to shroud your true self to make any ground.
Only THEN did white people want to dress like we did. It was only THEN did white people want to use the same slang they said made us “ghetto” in their own #music. Only THEN did white people want to stop insulting us with the word “nigga” and started using it welcomely to their friends. It was only when complicit white people could monetize our being once again that they wanted to be like us.
And now we are back in the same boat. Rapper performs at the top club, at the discretion of the white owner. The rapper can only top the billboard at the discretion of the white listener. The way we used to talk to communicate our unique experiences, we are now forbidden from wanting to keep intimately close to us. Who owns the record labels? Who owns the Louie V? The Michael Kohrs? The Rari’s? Who asks us to wear their clothes, buy their cars, and simply be ourselves in them because our unique existence is profitable in almost any space. However, those same people will never let us have a significant stake in those respective company. Not even close.
So if you are upset that some black ppl get mad when white people use the word “nigga”, even in a friendly way, just think about our perspective. Nobody wants anything to do with our culture until it becomes pop culture. And by that time, it’s no longer ours. Just like Black inventions of decades past, we see our very #culture being appropriated every day without accreditation and it’s hard to shake the feeling that one day even THAT will be taken away from us as well.
So like..Damn…Is it cool if we have SOMETHING of our own? Just asking for a friend.
Thanks for reading and your interest. Please consider following on twitter, youtube, facebook, or medium if you are active there. The only way to help our communities understand each other is if we critically, but respectfully, engage one another every day, and challenge our societal norms.
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