(January 9, 2014 at 12:02 pm)Ivy Wrote: I find it pointless to pout over "why can't I use the word, but you can". If you want to rap the darn song, then do it. Is it so hard to refrain from singing it when a black person is around in case it will start mayhem? One of my two closest buddies is black, I'm Mexican, and the other guy is white. We talk about ethnic stuff all the time. The phrase "you people" is used often when referring to things that our cultures do. We laugh at each other all the time. We can do that, because we know our intentions, and we feel safe that nobody there is racist. I have common sense, though. I won't go up to a black stranger and say "you people" this or that. If a rapper adds the words "nigger" to the lyrics, damn right I'd feel free to rap the song including the word. It's there. I'd just not do it in front of Quill or any other black person, unless they sent the message that we're cool like that. I understand it's hard to understand when you haven't been treated like shit for the color of your skin. I'm not just talking about the past. Even now it still happens to a smaller scale. I live in Arizona. I should know.
It's that I have to treat someone different because of the color of their skin that makes me uncomfortable. If I would say nigga in the rap song with white friends in the car, but not with black friends, it means again white people have let society dictate that we treat black people differently. It means I am acting differently around someone that has a different skin color than me. And acting is the key word here too. This division of words continues to keep us separate, white people are afraid to even just discuss the word with other black people. And so they act differently around them out of fear that something they say will be misconstrued into racism.
