The N Word As it is Found In Rock

[TheSound]

All I know is that these hiphoppers and gangsta rappers are apparently allowed to use the N word about themselves in their lyrics, and they are fine with it, but if a person of a different skin pigmentation uses it, then they get labelled as a racist. My kids have Snoop Dog albums where he uses it like 30+ times in 1 song, so people who complain should STFU about calling it racist, it's like some 350 pound guy stuffing his face all day, and then blaming McDonalds and Subway for the fact everyone else is discriminating against him by calling him "fatty".

 

[AboutAGirl]

Oy, kind of a rough thread. I think middle ground is the reasonable ground. No these songs shouldn't be criticized for their use. But no, white people sure as hell shouldn't feel free to use the N word whenever they damn well please, either.

The "only black people can say the N word at will" rule makes perfect sense. Think of it this way, if you call your sister a slut, because you two have that kind of amiably cheeky relationship, that's okay. If some random person gets up in your sister's face and calls her a slut, wouldn't you be insulted? Wouldn't you get mad? Wouldn't you say something?

That's the same reason why black people can say the n-word, gay people can say fag, Jewish people can make Jewish jokes (ever seen that Seinfeld episode?)

It's not an issue of freedom of speech. You can say what you want. You're as welcome to call a black man a n***** as he is to call your mom a f***ing c*m guzzling five cent whore. The issue is, how will people react? What will people think? If you insult someone, they might get mad. Is that such a strange concept? Obviously not. Of course people get mad when you use the N word, duh.

 

[terry ells]

Oy, kind of a rough thread. I think middle ground is the reasonable ground. No these songs shouldn't be criticized for their use. But no, white people sure as hell shouldn't feel free to use the N word whenever they damn well please, either.

The "only black people can say the N word at will" rule makes perfect sense. Think of it this way, if you call your sister a slut, because you two have that kind of amiably cheeky relationship, that's okay. If some random person gets up in your sister's face and calls her a slut, wouldn't you be insulted? Wouldn't you get mad? Wouldn't you say something?

That's the same reason why black people can say the n-word, gay people can say fag, Jewish people can make Jewish jokes (ever seen that Seinfeld episode?)

It's not an issue of freedom of speech. You can say what you want. You're as welcome to call a black man a n***** as he is to call your mom a f***ing c*m guzzling five cent whore. The issue is, how will people react? What will people think? If you insult someone, they might get mad. Is that such a strange concept? Obviously not. Of course people get mad when you use the N word, duh.

yep what you said

 

[terry ells]

now tell me who's more racist?

 

[Mr. Bob Dobolina]

"Only takes one itchy trigger; one more widow, one less white ******." - Elvis Costello "Oliver's Army"

I had no problem with Elvis's use of the word in this context. Unfortunately for him, he made headlines around the time the song came out for a barroom brawl. He got into a fight with members of Stephen Stills' band during which he (E.C., not Stephen) drunkenly referred to Ray Charles as a "blind ignorant ******". I took great offense to that use of the word and it painted him as a racist in the music press for quite awhile.

 

[LG]

Playing sports I've become immune to any insults, gives you thick skin when you realize any word only has power over you if you give it that much importance. I can guarantee the "N-word" is a mild insult on the field of battle and used all the time along with all the other slurs towards everyone's ethnic background.

If Hip-Hop and Rap can beat that insult to death then to me it's lost it's sting, I would have liked it to fade into obscurity personally.

 

[Rattlesnake Rock n Roller]

 

[Mr. Shadow]

 

[CP/M User]

I'm against censorship but am also in favour of a little good taste and class in how we go about our daily lives.

Agreed, but I just hate it when "these people" cry wolf when they think someone is being racist when they are not of the same group. It's like they can use the term themselves when they talk to people of their kind, but as soon as belong to another group, it's racist.

 

[TheSound]

Back to my original point about hip-hoppers and gangster-rappers (and this thread is after all titled 'The N Word As it is Found In Rock' ) If a certain culture wants a word which they say they find "racist" and "offensive" (though only apparently when it suits them) obliterated from the English language, which I would actually have no problem with, then hey, don't release countless CDs every year containing literally 100's of explicit references to that word, and then market and sell the things to millions of people for profit, and then complain when it becomes a part of those people's common vocabulary.

I just randomly checked one of my son's rap CD's - in this case it was 50 Cent’s album 'Get Rich or Die Trying' - and I read the lyrics on the CD sleeve, and I counted about 130 uses of the 'N' word, just on that one album alone. I then checked further and found out that it sold 850,000 copies just in it's first week of release in 2003, and it topped the Billboard album chart.

So who exactly is compounding the racist stereotype issue here, and popularising the use of the N word so that it continues to be heard daily by millions of people, in this case through music?....is it guys like me - who never uses the N word to anyone, ever, in any context whatsover, from one year to the next - or artists like 50 Cent, and presumably 100's of others just like him, who it seems can barely even open their mouths without using it?

If you find any word or expression offensive, for whatever reason, you can't then just pick and choose when and where it is acceptable to you, and when and where it isn't acceptable to you, that just makes you sound like an idiot who wants to have things both ways, and expects everybody else to play exactly by your own rules, and live their lives and speak their language according to exactly what you want.

It’s actually like a kind of cultural apartheid, or segregation based on language... so if a guy is walking through New York or DC or Detroit or wherever, and he comes into a black neighbourhood, then he’s OK to use the N word until he gets out of that neighbourhood, but then as soon as he leaves it, he can’t, because it is then suddenly deemed "racist"?

This is like when feminists complain about the use of the word "man" as they find it offensive, and they insist you have to say "human being", so then what, are all the other mammals then going to start to complain too???