http://variety.com/2018/music/opinion/kendrick-lamar-rappers-should-stop-using-n-word-1202818977/
@angryblackman thoughts?
I don’t agree with this at all, and I’m getting tired of the whole “is it fair to not let white fans say nigga” argument. It’s very easy to not say it, sing it or let it leave your lips if you’re white (and also if you’re not black in general). You shouldn’t want to say it if you’re white.
And this argument always brings the whole fucking, “well, if you don’t want white people to say it, then don’t use it” argument and it’s like…why do white people want to say it in the first place? You have a whole dictionary at your disposal, this is the one word you shouldn’t say, yet here you are saying it.
And say we stop saying nigga altogether. What happens then? White people are probably going to move onto the next damn slur that’s been reclaimed by an oppressed group, and keep going until all of them have ceased used among oppressed groups that have reclaimed them. They’re about to collect racial slurs like the infinity stones and shit.
Rappers shouldn’t be expected to drop the n-word because white fans can’t act right when it comes to not saying it. Plus, before the white girl got up on stage and was letting the n-word fly, there were actually other people who went up and rapped Kendrick’s songs – they all avoided saying the n-word.
Do you feel the same idea of abolishing the n-word apply to books? Specifically books as Mark Twain literature? I feel banning words can also have a negative impact in teaching “look how terrible society was here.” Mistakes are bad when made, but often infinitely worse if you do not learn and grow from them to never repeat yourself. I recall some years ago about questioning the edit of those books and I don’t remember what came of it.
