Don't call me Niggah!

Where is the World is D?

Shaking his fist at rap music and soft brained kids!

This has been a very productive week for me in my modeling gig. I have worked 2 three hour sessions everyday with week. It equals about the same amount as substitute teaching, with far few hassles.

In every class there is music playing. It's all over the road. Most of it is mellowish instrumental trippy music, artistic white noise. But in one class it's usually far out trippy heavy metalish. But today in this class, the teacher shifted to 90's hip/hop slash "gangsta rap" music. I really loved the beats in every song, but every other word was niggah this and niggah that.

I don't listen to that style of music. I even forbade the Sean and Tim to listen to it as they were growing up. It's stupid, demeaning and unnecessarily violent. BUT, models are best seen and not heard. So for the last hour of this class in was pummeled with this. All the students were shocked when the teacher put it on. Not at the content mind you, but at how old it was. "Dang I have heard this since 9th grade! This is old school." I thought, "The Sugarhill Gang and The Isley Brothers are old school youngster. These guy are punks that can't make a rhyme without a curse word." But I digress......

So as this young man, A very nice and affable kid by the way, is singing along, I cringed inside my head every time niggah was in the lyrics. But here's what I wanted to say....

"Hey kid, do you have any flippin idea how insulted I am personally that you would use such a word so cavalierly in my presence. And NO there is NOT a difference between Nigger and Niggah! Both words are demeaning and stupid and people who can't see that are even stupider. You can't rationalize that word on any level. No it's not empowering to take control of it as to say it's like calling me "Brotha". It's was a slave word 300 years ago and it's one today!"

Then I would say, "Give me an example of ANY Black man of stature that has gotten there using that word." (Any Black man of stature that didn't sell drugs, pimp, or rob someone first." I personally can't think of any, and I'm a reasonably smart guy.

Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Malcolm, W.E.B DuBois, Jesse Jackson (before he got silly), Thurgood Marshall, Barack Obama, Fredrick Douglass, Colin Powell, Langston Hughes, Andrew Young. These are just the ones I rattle off the top of my head at 1 AM. The list goes on and on.

I want to be in this class of Smart, Brilliant, Educated, Urbane, and Successful gentleman. So don't can me niggah. As a matter of fact, don't even use it around me. Ever. Especially if you're Black. You should know better. Now check out this video!