Professor James said:
How In honor of black history month, I decided to talk about the word ******. do you feel about the usage of ****** among blacks and frat boys/12 year olds. As for blacks, I find it ironic that people spent years to lower the usage of that word & black people use it all (in lack of a better word) Willy nilly. As for frat boys/12 year olds well that's just rudeness and anonymity but I think a few frat boys call themselves ****** so they can pretend to be black because to them black means cool. So anyway, do you care about the usage of ****** and do you think the definition of ****** changed from being derogative to just kind of a greeting.
Disclaimer: please tell me if this is a repeat thread.
It's a power thing to be honest. I'm not politically correct, so I'm going to be blunt about it.
Black culture in the USA is incredibly messed up and has become it's own worst enemy. With real racism dead in the mainstream, the civil liberties battle won, and a black president (which means he needed support from the majority to even have a shot) there is no serious questioning of these facts. The problem is with all of these things done with, it's time for black America to get down to the actual hard work, taking advantage of those oppertunities that were fought for, assimilating into society, and becoming just like everyone else now that nobody is holding them back. The problem of course being that to a lot of black folks they don't feel this is what they were promised. They don't just want to go and work in school like everyone else, and have the same soul crushing 9-5 jobs that everyone has. They expected "equal oppertunity" to amount to success, a life of leisure, a big fancy car, and control over one's own destiny. The kinds of things most people don't have. This leads to a general attitude that if they can't be on top, and be powerful, they would rather not even try, or be dead. The so called "get rich or die trying" attitude.
Simply put, the so called "N" word has become a power thing, part of the entire point of using it is to draw a line in society, it seperates blacks from whites, and also demonstrates "hey I've got this word that was once used as a sign of oppression, but now I can shoot it off everywhere and you can't or even your own people will get upset with you". People keep asking about the dual standard, and trying to analyze the situation, when really that reaction is exactly what it's all about. The point being that you walk into a workplace, and if two of your black co-workers start using that word, it's almost a challenge to the management of "go ahead, use the word, or try and stop us from doing it" because they know they can make a scene about it.
I'm probably not articulating it well, and I'm sure a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but this is the bottom line when you get down to it.
Honestly, I'll be painfully blunt in saying that I think things like "black history month" are counter productive to the problems we're dealing with, because by their very nature they draw a division where "we need a special month for black people" when the idea is to deal with breaking down a counter culture, and unrealistic expectations, and working towards assimilation. I think every thing we do right now that makes it seem special to be black, or simgles them out for some kind of appreciation has exactly the opposite effect people setting up wants, and does nothing but fuel those expectations.
I'm one of those people who think that as a society we need to start seriously hammering the "proud to be ignorant" aspects of the culture and doing whatever it takes to install realistic goals, and an idea of assimilating into normal society. That incidently means also doing things like ending the one way usage of the "N" word.
I don't expect my response to be popular (as I said) but this is what I think.
