The "N" Word: Person, Race, or Thing?

"I say Nigga 100 times before breakfast. Keeps my teeth white."

-Paul Mooney

"....I start to flinch as I try not to say but

my lips is like oowop as I start to spray it...... "

-Q-Tip

"SHUT THE DO' NIGGA!!!"

My Dear Great Grandmother

-Rosa Lee Newsome

"There's a war going on. It's between Black People

and Niggas. And Niggas got to go."

-Chris Rock

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine recently. We were talking about the video news clip of The Intruder that has been going around the net lately. Somewhere in the woods of Alabama someone's house got broken into in the projects and attempted to rape one of the residents. Of course the camera crew managed to find the most ignorant people in a five mile radius of the scene of the crime to give their two cents of the event. What followed was pure comedy. Working in film I know for a fact that whoever edited this news clip together was dying from laughter. I asked my friend why they had to put the most ignorant niggas on tv? She told me that she didn't like that word and that it bothered her. She went on to say that she hadn't heard the word since College - other than from me. I was amazed....to say the least. Ever since then I've been thinking about the word and what it has meant to me. I started thinking how long had this word been on my tongue? How many times a day do I say it? The real mind blower was when she told me she had used it before - for a "period" - in high school. A period? In all seriousness......that might have been my first word.

A few days passed and the subject came up again. I understood not wanting to hear it and respected the fact that she didn't like the word. Of course it still slipped a few times. I suggested substituting the word for 'ninja' since one way or another it was bound to be uttered - purely out of habit. I asked her if she understood that there are actually real niggas out in the world. She asked "What does that mean?"

"What does that mean?"

I had a friend in High School named Hercules. Me and Herc came up together in church. His dad was a deacon or something like that. Before we started kicking it we were just kids in the church choir. I managed to get out of singing by helping out the sound engineer in the recording booth. I remember seeing this fool really being in to the song and singing hard. He moved back to North Carolina with his mom and I didn't see him again for 2 years. When he came back we started kicking it. We would smoke at lunch and mess with the girls around town. He was cool to kick it with because he always had some random chick that he met at a gas station on the other side of town to go see and we would kick it with them and get fucked up half the night. Eventually he got one of the girls pregnant. His dad, the fucking deacon and shit.....kicks him out in the street. He ends up having to move in with his Aunt in the middle of the hood....which just happened to be down the street from where we went to church at. After that his life basically went down hill. Almost instantly he became a kleptomaniac. I couldn't take him anywhere. He was always either on the run from someone he stole from or ducking someone he owed money to or doing what he did best - making new enemies. At the time I was dating this girl named Tracy. She was from out of town. Her friend was with her when she had come to visit. Herc bangs her friend the same night. We go to visit them a few weeks later and Herc robs the girl for her Nike boots and then he tries to jack my girl's CD player. I realize what he's done halfway home when I see him coming out of the bathroom with her boots on bobbing his head to whatever CDs he stole from the store in the CD player that he stole from my girl. Once we get back home I made sure to steal the CD player back. fuck that........I started to realize that maybe Herc wasn't the best friend to have around....He was always getting arrested for some dumb shit. He walked into a police raid with dope on him once. He would get caught stealing with dope on him. After I left for school I didn't see him much - if at all. The last time I actually spoke to him was when he called my grandma's house to try to get me to call whatever fucked up halfway house he was in and impersonate his father to get him a weekend pass. I told him to fuck off. I keep in contact with the mother of his child though. Go see the kid when I'm in town. My ex from high school told me that she seen him recently looking smoked out. Its sad really. Now he wasn't always a nigga. He became one.

None of us are really niggas though - but growing up you think that you are..and eventually you develop that mentality that's hard to break from..or at least where I grew up you did. The family members who raise you call you one. All your friends, cousins, associates, strangers...they all call you nigga. The music you listen to tells you that you are. I remember there was a rap song....no the whole album was named Niggaz 4 Life.

Its plain to see/you can't change me/ cuz I'ma be a nigga for life

Nigga isn't what he was, it's how he was thinking, which made him who he was.

He would rob cars from school parking lots. Keep 'em for days...He was a nigga....but he was my friend. I remember my other cousin once told me all he wanted to be remembered as was a "Real Ass Nigga". I remember thinking that shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

"What does that mean?".......I didn't really know how to answer the question. I brought up my bike getting stolen a few days before but I was really just holding out. I thought.....maybe she doesn't need to know what I mean.....Maybe she shouldn't know.......because if she had to ask me then she must not know. My cousin from Atlanta once told me he didn't want to know the things he knew. The same cousin later on told me that he didn't have any friends. He said that if you was his friend he'd rob yo muh'fuckin ass. He wasn't joking. What does that mean??? Should I have laid the heavy shit on her? Should I have told her about my other cousin's baby daddy who's currently locked up on Federal Gun charges? When I was younger he worked at a food stand in Florida. He had just gotten out not too long before that. I asked him what he was in for. "Fucking niggas up." He wasn't lying. My other cousin once fell asleep in the club when I was with him. One of our girl cousins comes up and notices that he's sleep. She starts to go through his pockets. Finally she fishes out $20 and runs away. The next night I was out with my other female cousin. We're kicking it with her cousins from her dad's side. They all drop X. Later on that night my cousins realizes that her cousins just robbed her for her money while she was in the club. What does that mean?

I have another older female cousin. She grew up with my mom. She has three boys. The youngest one is currently locked up on Racketeering charges. I don't even know the amount of shit you have to be in to get charged with racketeering. He's only 21 and he's facing about 10 more years. The second oldest is locked up on murder charges. His second murder charge. Meaning that he got off before once...and now he's locked up for it again. The oldest just got out of jail for robbing a drug dealer. The last time I was there he came and picked me up. We go to pick up my other girl cousin and her kids to take them to the pool party. Along the way we make a few crack stops. Her loyal customers were waiting as we drove up. "I'll see you tomorrow" says the crack head who's missing a few crucial teeth. On the way to drop me off we end up going back over there later for another sale. Later that weekend me and the oldest son went out to get a drink in the next town of Sarasota. There's a small strip where everyone goes to hang out. While we're out there hanging out a guy comes up with a knowing smile and wraps his arm around my cousin. They appear to be old friends. They go off and talk for a minute while I'm standing there wishing I was back in New York. After we leave my cousin tells me the guy that came up to him set him up for a drug bust. The guy had just got out of jail so he planted the drugs on my cousin to get out of a possession charge. My cousin had to do a year for it. "He really respects me."

What does that Mean?

I love my family. It may seem that I'm judging them but I'm not. I love my grimiest cousin to death. Family is Family. Are some of them niggas?? Most Definitely. Would I ever turn my back on any of them? Never in a million years. Would I bail them out of jail? Hell Naw.

Since the conversation I had with my friend I've noticed a funny thing. When I hear people say it now it sounds funny. I was watching an episode of Boondocks and Thugnificent was in the house. Every other word he said was nigga......do I sound like that?

I've always felt justified using the word. I've felt that its our word and we have the sole right to use it. As a term of endearment and negatively if need be. In certain situations there's no other word that could even come close to describing exactly how you feel. Its such a powerful word that people look for excuses to be able to use it and not get in trouble for it. You probably can't tell from the quote I used at the beginning but my great grandmother was a true saint. She loved her family more than anything. I must have heard her use that word in a million different ways and a million more variations. She never meant any harm by it though. She was the sweetest old lady that ever was. She knew the truth though.

What does that mean? It means I hope she never becomes my cousin's friend.