I think it has more to do with the fact we treat this and similar threads like a family dinner table. One person may ask a question but 6 or more people are apt to respond, assuming they know the answer.
I agree with you, nj. There are power in numbers and when one of us can relate to someone else's view, it has the tendency
to get paid attention to more and considered harder by those seeking knowlege about it and
from that comes a more true, deeper understanding of the topic.
Ah...just thought this would be a throw a way (like my suggestion for a thread "Ask a post whore anything"), but I see you are requesting substance....
...do you deal with the "n" word?
A Black man I know can't deal with Richard Pryor, another can't stand Bill Cosby, another likes SOAP's Benson.
What's the deal here?
I like this question, so here it goes. I deal with the "n" word because I choose to. When it falls from my lips, I use it to convey 'love' within my circle of friends, my family, my community. Mind you, I have not mentioned ethnicity once. I make the conscious act of using a term that was initially created to belittle and change it into something
beautiful. Instead of me saying, "This is my friend, James" (which could be a light phrase and easily forgotten) I choose to say, "...man, James. That's my nigga" and in that I'm instilling in whomever I'm speaking to that James is not just an associate of mine. He's important to me. I view him as a diamond in the rough, I miss him terribly when he's gone, I'd put my life in his hands and would feel comfortable that I'd be okay
in his hands.
Even with a simple greeting these emotions can be expressed while using the term. Then, when I'm with comrades that do not belong to my ethnicity and they ask why I use the word, I tell them the very reason I've just stated. Racism will only die off and fade away when we as individuals and communities and society make the choice to kill it.
I was walking home from work one night in Virginia. It was like 2 in the morning and there was a car with maybe 3 white men in it from what I could tell. My friend and I were walking, minding our business when I heard "Get out the street n********" Not for a second did I falter in my step, shake in my boots, or part my lips to respond. Now, my friend he was livid and started yelling back at the moving car going down the street in the middle of the night (WTF). That's when I checked my friend and asked him, "Is that how you view yourself? Is that why you're yelling at the night air for nothing? I didn't respond because they weren't talking to me & they weren't talking to you so you shouldn't have said anything either." I calmed my friend and he eventually understood where I was coming from. Now, had the mysterious men in the car called me by my name, then I would've responded. That's a different story.
So, I act as if it doesn't exist and hopefully, one day before I die, it won't.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it
