My classmate “Bend it Like Beck.ham”: “I feel like I’m back in traffic right now.”
Wise: “I feel like I’m back in Reconstruction…like, before emancipation fully kicked in.”
Wise: “I feel like I’m back in Reconstruction…like, before emancipation fully kicked in.”
We were talking about how boring class was, but actually now that I think about it, this is exactly how I been feeling the past few days. My pop culture fanaticism is well documented, but thanks to the ubiquitous media, it kinda sucks to be black right now.
Never mind that one of TV’s greatest idiots actually has the nation confused about whether or not repeatedly calling black men ‘Nig’ is racist…because frankly I’m even more disturbed by the crackers laughing in the audience at the time…and then again when he mumbled on Lett.ermen. (PS...sales for the 7th season of S'feld are up 75% from last year's sales for season 6)
But this whole John Rid.ley Esq article* feels so, so… antebellum. Coincidentally, if you do a search on this blog you will find that I’ve been quite liberal with the word nig, ngga, whatev. It’s comedic brilliance. Words have a certain cadence, and that particular word just rolls of the tongue/pen with a certain vulgar eloquence. But I also use it with the assumption that my audience is wise enough to be in on the joke.
It’s irresponsible, it’s demeaning, it’s a hard habit to break, and frankly not all that funny. But seeing the word plastered all willy nilly all up and thru the mass media is just effing creepy. Separate and unequal. And now it's publicly open for unsolicited discussions with uninformed crackers...and for that matter, nigs.
Funny thing, I just finished a research paper about blackface minstrel shows. And sorry to tell you neo-nggas that white folks been callin us nigga with an 'A' too...not just nig.ger with an 'ER.' Harvard Library Special Collections has crates full of authentic minstrel sheet music to prove it. Who made up that bullshit explanation anyway, some ole nonsensical, non-spellin ngga?
So I’m bringing ‘Cracker’ back.
I know, I know… it’s not nearly as explosive, funny, or demeaning. But I say we Booker T. it…work with it, and just bootstrap it until we rise to find a new, more equally damning term. And when Mr. Charlie catches on and starts calling himself Cracka, we’ll reconvene.
*If you havent heard about or read this article, you should. He's basically making the infamous Chris Rock Black folks vs. Nggers distinction...but not only is it highly offensive and elitist/classist, it's also really shortsighted and shitty-written. Ironically ESQ apparently also released a Gen.ius List that included no black geniuses. Their readership is almost all white male. Always consider the audience when analyzing the content. You have white boys by the ear and THIS is what you have to say? NEGROES!
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21 comments:
Back in the day (and sorry for using that term, but I am old enough to use it), there were some things and word that were only used when it was just "US". We never used the word nigger in front of any other race. When Richard was throwing the word around, trust, it was only Richard doing that in the presence of White folk. Oh they laughed but they knew not to repeat it! Now rappers use it like Hello and encourage there white suburban teenage partons to use the word also. The lesson to be learned here... SOMETHINGS SHOULD JUST BE KEPT AMONGST "US"! Not that it was ever an endearing term, but when we used it you knew exactly how it was meant.
Black folks only call me a *cracker* when they see me with my gf. It happens a usually once a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on where I am in the Country.
It's never just cracker tho.
A string of profanity of variable length precedes the term.
1Philly...exactly. It's the whole cultural consumption of the word that bugs me. Hearing it bleeped out of songs on the radio, hearing it on public tranpso by young kids, hearing it so casually tossed about in front of others...and yet I've done the same thing here. But in my own way, knowing that there are lots of readers of our blogs that arent us, I guess I feel like I'm using it just as you suggest...in the company of family.
Rev...I swear I thought of you as I was writing this, and was eager to hear your perspective. First off, you dont strike me as the kind of guy who would be offended by semantics...joking or otherwise, but I apologize if it gave you the willies in any way. :)
Second, I assume your gf is a sis...and that really sucks that you get that barrage. But the lesson is that the whole race thing is really not as cut and dry and simple as people like to believe. The shit runs deep. so deep that most of the time normally intelligent, conscientious people don't even understand it.
The word's not going anywhere...tho I wish it would exit stage right out of pop culture. So I say let's start offending EVERYBODY starting with white folks. Oh Asians and Puerto Ricans y'all are next! lol
Wise:
Not at all... i mean a word is a word is a word. And what i make of it, i make of it. The word "cracker" bears no weight with me. it has no connotation for me, and has no personal reference to me. It means nothing to me. I know that it is used as an insult, yet it doesn't succeed, with me anyway. For a while my hair was bleached blond for a specific well paying profile gig. Soon after, i was being labeled a "fag". Again, not being gay, and getting laid more than the average guy, this insult had no weight with me.
i honestly feel the only way to tackle things like this is to hit them head on. Ive learned a lot by reading your blog and the comments from other bloggers on here. How else to change things? I'm fortunate that in my industry, there seems to be a little oasis at times where race disappears for the greater good. I love it there.
I'm completely ashamed of Michael Richards and honestly cannot comprehend in the least WTF is going on in the mans head. It makes me sad.
MZ...BS...Thanks for coming out of the shadows. lol Unfortunately ngga is in the everyday lexicon now...and no matter how upset SOME of us are about that, the fact that it's a part of pop culture means it's fair game. So bec a few very influential people have gone public with it we all gotta deal with it...
Like, imagine if we had an idiot for a president who set policies that represented all of us, except he never consulted all of us and then we were just stuck with living within those policies. :)
Rev says..."i mean a word is a word is a word. And what i make of it, i make of it."
Very good point...Cracker was never implemented with any institutional power and oppression attached to it the way ngga was. It's purely individual. But you're right in saying that we should face it head on. I'm just not sure how to do that effectively. :(
That article in Esquire was some serious bullshit.
"Always consider the audience when analyzing the content. You have white boys by the ear and THIS is what you have to say? NEGROES!"
I think it is more that the white boys running Esquire are not going to allow anything, but this type of elitest crap.
Great post.
i'm with miz jj on the article. i couldn't even get through page two of that fucking mess. celebrate the accomplishments of black people who would sell the whole race down the river and set civil rights back 60 years just to get a seat at a kennebunkport thanksgiving table? NIGGER please (and i say that will full-sonorance on the last syllable). as far as i'm concerned, colin powell is the only black republican worth any sort of serious consideration in terms of looking after niggers and "new blacks" alike. this jackass seems to forget only 40 years ago, we were all sitting on the back of the bus together, not allowed to eat at lunch counters and use indoor bathrooms together, fought for our freedoms together. whitey ain't make no distinction between a nigger doctor or a nigger street pharmacist. dat nigga is overdue for an asswhippin.
that is all_
I am shocked and disappointed.
First, wise, I apologize for doubting you.
I hold (used to) John Ridley as one of my literary models.
No More.
I am still in shock over what I just read, not because of what he said...but because of the blatant lack of context he said it in.
Sure, It isnt HIS fault that some poor brothas caught a 50 piece value pack from the police while unarmed even as Condi and Powell's homey's war continues to descend into the shitter...
or that his little N-Bomb blitzkreig is so timely considering Mr. Richards' little foray into the news cycle.
Nevertheless...at some point when you write...you have to consider your place in history.
Mr. Ridley has disappointed me greatly and has been dismissed from my pantheon of heroes.
I am now on the search for his replacement.
i didn't get past the first page of the article. us versus them is precisely part of "our" problem. cracker won't make me feel better. getting a common sense response to the rant from any black person in the public eye might. but i can't be sure b/c i haven't heard any. apologizing to jesse jackson's audience WHEN I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HE HAD A SHOW doesn't work. you want some combative black folk? try tom joyner.
I will try, Wise, to write this comment with THE LEAST amount of biased southern upbring as possible. With that little disclaimer, lets begin.
*ahem*
Having been born and raised in Georgia, you grow up realizing that racism is not such a dead issue as people would like to have us believe. I can still remember vividly times when situations would occur that reminded me that I was, in fact, just a nigga to some people, no matter my economis status, education, or personal views. And it's a hard pill to swallow.
Mr. Ridley is a pussy. Is this guy serious with this bullshit? That's all I can really say about that and still sound somewhat like I have a college education. I barely made it a page without many very racist comments I haven't made in a long time forcing their way outta my mouth to be said alive. Uncle Tom. Anyway...
I too use the word nigga very liberally. I've personally always thought that words themselves don't have the power. The intent behind them is what gives them weight. It is this intent that determines whether or not I will be offended by your comments and lay you out on the floor or if I will come back with a snappy racist epithet of my own. I have many friends of many different racial backgrounds and I'm very proud to say that we deal with our racial differences head on, be it in a joking way or genuinely educating each other. I'd like to think I've always been equal opportunity when it comes to being offensive.
The fact that more hasn't occurred with Michael Richards is tragic evidence that we have not, in fact, come as far as we'd like to believe. If growing up and living in the south has taught me nothing else, no matter how many white friends I have, we aren't more than 40 years away from segregated bathrooms and and getting hosed down with water.
Hey I did pretty good.
Black face Uncle Tom cooning my as well be a cracker ass nigga.
Ok that slipped, lol.
MIZJJ and Karamale...I am with you on the fact that this is the only type of "black" article ESQ found "provocative" enough to print. But I expect that from them. That's who "they" are.
And Jameil is right, who knew JJ even HAD a radio show? TJ would have been the PERFECT firing range for MR...on a day where Miss Dupree is there, no less.
Bec as David poignantly notes, it's all about the lack of context with this issue. Ole man Riddles shows us how easy it is for even black folks to divide and conquer...so imagine how easy it is for white folks.
And LA...your Southern perspective is much appreciated and appropriately gangsta! :)
I propose this: Free speech to the fullest. No more P.C. everyone say whatever the hell they want to say...just know that you are not spared from an ass whupping for saying it.
Fuck the word Cracker!.I say we use the word Saltines...
Dammit... Now I'm at a crossroads.
Cracker (or how I spit it: Craka) or Saltine...
As in that craka Ridley really exposed himself fifty words in, and I'm sure most of his cracka (cracker) ass audience agrees wholeheartedly in his non-belief that good wholesome black folk even exist. Them crackas (crackers) think each and ever one of us are some shiftless ass, non-comprehending ass niggas (niggers).
or
John Ridley's saltine ass used that Esq. piece to finally give his cracka ass audience fodder to open backroom convo and make it as commercially palatable as our usage of the word nigga (nigger). Now that this shit is out there, might as well establish some sort of nigga/cracka protocol. Right?
Good lord. Time to break out the thesaurus. Can I get a study partner?
Amadeo...Hmmm, violence as the alternative...I like...then again, can't trust the crackas.
Ah Slish...that is one of my fav colloquialisms. lol
Has...library or cafe-lounge? ;)
I have a subscription to Esquire. When I read that article, I hated John Ridley elitist ass with all my heart. And to have the nerve to have it in this lily-white magazine.
I feel better now. Not because I feel differently, but because I need to know who to shoot in the fuckin' head when the revolution comes. How do I know unless they reveal themselves. I'm saving a round for you, John.
KZ
So...ummm, I wasn't suppose to be using "cracker"?
Ummm, I didn't get that memo...I thought it was still in affect...along with the saltine and whitebread and ...dare I say honkey. Da hell is a honkey anyway?
That article is extremely elitist. I actually tasted puke while reading it. I guess you wont have to worry about me ever reading Esquire again.
John Riley better hope I dont see him in the streets. I may let the "nigger" part of me out.
Damn blogger cause my comment went bye, bye.
1) Loving you for "Words have a certain cadence, and that particular word just rolls of the tongue/pen with a certain vulgar eloquence."
Vulgar eloquence, hot damn.
2)"Always consider the audience when analyzing the content."
Tru, tru.
3)I think that the discourse needs to involve not just how we stop people from exposing their prejudices because I'd rather be aware of them than not, though ignorance of any kind being affirmed is insulting. Richards was wrong point blank, and that ya'll use it so I can use it defense deserves the old "If they jump, do you jump" ?. But I want to know what language we're willing to use to empower ourselves.
Also LoL @ Jam for the comment on Jesse having a show, I didn't know either.
LoL @ Blah...blah...blah,
"So...ummm, I wasn't suppose to be using "cracker"?
Ummm, I didn't get that memo...I thought it was still in affect...along with the saltine and whitebread and ...dare I say honkey. Da hell is a honkey anyway?"
Dat mess was hilarious.
I'm not going to touch this one...it would completely ruin my evening which is currently being drowned in a glass of red wine, some warm pita, and red pepper hummus YUMMY!!! Nope I won't do it cause if I start I might go the fuk off (AGAIN)!!!
Great post!
Blah...Have you filled out a change of address form, like since the 70s? Your memo suck in somebody else's mailbox. lol
Yo, I will never forget a white grade school teacher actually having a lesson about the origins of the word "honkey"...and I'm pretty sure it was bec I came to school reciting lines from The Jeffersons.
KZ says..."I need to know who to shoot in the fuckin' head when the revolution comes."
You damn right! I cant believe I never thought about it like that.
Eps...Look at you getting all BMore on him and shit! I love it. I wonder if he’s even the least bit phased by the criticism of his article.
Cnelly says..."3)I think that the discourse needs to involve not just how we stop people from exposing their prejudices because I'd rather be aware of them than not, though ignorance of any kind being affirmed is insulting. Richards was wrong point blank, and that ya'll use it so I can use it defense deserves the old "If they jump, do you jump" ?. But I want to know what language we're willing to use to empower ourselves."
Couldnt have said it any better, playboy.
Dinner at RD's house!
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