A selfie taken in the dark
A white guy has a baseball bat.
A black guy has a baseball bat.
Does skin color matter when one of them whacks you with the bat?
A black guy says, “Nigger!”
A white guy says, “Nigger!”
Does the speaker’s skin color matter?
Damn right skin color matters! Oh, the power people choose to give words!
I was four years old the first time someone called me “nigger.” I had never heard this word before and did not know its meaning. And because I did not know what it meant, I did not give the word any power to hurt me. I laughed and carried on. It was a new word, and I often called my playmates niggers. But I was the only nigger in the neighborhood.
Once I found out what “nigger” meant, I gave it the power to hurt me. And instead of laughing, I got into fights to defend my human dignity.
Yes, skin color matters when using the word “nigger.” I can get away with having this word as the title of this blog because I am a nigger, a coon, a mau-mau, a spook, a jungle bunny, a spade, a spearchucker, a little black sambo, a darky, a nig, a mau-mau, a nog, and the list goes on beyond nig-nog. By the way, did I mention that I am black?
If a white person says, “nigger,” what follows is worse than a nuclear holocaust.
N-I-G-G-E-R: Six letters that have no power from an alphabet that has no power given power by the listener depending upon the speaker’s skin color. How silly is that!
Understandably, people are offended by the word “nigger.” But they are offended because they have chosen to give “nigger” the power to offend. It is always a matter of choice.
Neither Joe Rogan nor anyone else should apologize for using a word that has no power.
