White musicians and "artistic" use of the N-word: A Discussion and Social History

It's bad, I know. I thought he said "two faced little n****** satisfied". Bon was a guy who liked to wear the Confederate flag on occasion, maybe as a kid that's why I though he said that.

I hated jocks in high school and always will

― in my day we had to walk 10 miles in the snow for VU bootleg (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:56 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Intelligent comment.

zuh

Yeah, I mean, there are elements of the Bangs piece that strike me as both good writing and the guy owning up to some things being more important than him. Probably the best being the conversation with Ivan Julian that goes "You probably don't remember, but--" / "Oh yeah, I remember."

More importantly, I think it's really OTM and prescient that he connects the racism with this effort to be misanthropic and powerless and little cretins about it, which I think still animates the same thing in all kinds of punk and metal. I don't think he's particularly sanctimonious about it; it seems like he's putting work into understanding or finding sympathies for it, actually.

(this is a separate story but I am like 75% certain I had several drinks at a bar with Ivan Julian on Christmas once)

Lennon/Ono are really winning here as the most valid/responsible/meaningful usage, aren't they. It's the only one I can think of where the intent to shock or discomfort people is actually being used to make you uncomfortable about something of equal weight. Though it's still tricky and it really does not have time on its side.

- As an irresponsible metaphor (Patti Smith, Elvis Costello)
- As an "responsible" metaphor, to whatever degree the word can be responsible used (John Lennon/Yoko Ono)

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:56 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's all a matter of opinion. there's def some ppl that would argue that ANY use of the n-word by a white person is irresponsible no matter how strong the message. I

Lennon/Ono are clear winners here for me, as is EIII (didn't comment before but your story was rad)

its not a contest, guys

lol at the Frogs response, oh dear

I assumed it was obvious that the word "winner" was being used as shorthand for people who were able to successfully navigate the landmines around using hateful verbiage in their art to put forward a coherent point but apparently I was wrong.

'that group of people (the white middle class) would have privilege pertaining whether they were jocks or not. and do."
That's what's so insidious about it -- the jockocracy reinforces that type of privilege as a norm. It makes everyone the poorer for it.

I guess you could argue that having to confront that ugliness might bring you to question your own assumptions, as Axl's nonstop boorishness did for me, but by and large I think it's a net positive to just do away with it as much as possible, especially in a venue that is supposed to be instilling in you values on how to behave in the real world.

xpost

the W-word

This issue has been bounced back and forth since at least Huck Finn.

i don't think enough is being made of non-black instances in hip-hop except for that classsssic dr. dre story about the beastie boys upthread.

much more interesting that axl rose imo.

I guess you could argue that having to confront that ugliness might bring you to question your own assumptions, as Axl's nonstop boorishness did for me, but by and large I think it's a net positive to just do away with it as much as possible, especially in a venue that is supposed to be instilling in you values on how to behave in the real world.

Absolutely not. "Doing away with it as much as possible" leads to this:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/doll.study.parents/index.html

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:0J1UXKebnom80M:http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zQF_BaMJ5qw/SodbjOVfkVI/AAAAAAAABxs/o7hhhD554gA/s320/R-152218-1079243773.jpg

never forget

full study results here: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/05/13/expanded_results_methods_cnn.pdf

must say that j-love & mc serch using this annoys me intensely, and strikes me as posturing/over-compensating/presumption tho i'm sure nabisco has a point abt being part of a culture etc.

what about fat joe?????

when did serch do this?

yeah i did not ever hear that abt serch

j-love's tag is "j-love, nigga" rather than "nigger" which is implicitly connecting to the culture and can be an inclusive thing but still

serch used it in everyday speech

man afaic -a or -er is still a distinction that white people don't get to make

there was Ill Bill's "white N----"

which is def a Patti/Lester throwback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUt5cJheY3Y

ARE there really that many instances of non-black rappers doing this, though? that's half a real question and half an assumption that most non-black rappers would be rather sensitive about this particular issue.

xposts: haha guess so.

"Absolutely not. "Doing away with it as much as possible" leads to this:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/doll.study.parents/index.html";

I don't understand -- are you saying these kids spontaneously developed racist attitudes that somehow a jock culture vaccine would have inoculated them against?

A 2007 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that 75 percent of white families with kindergartners never, or almost never, talk about race. For black parents the number is reversed with 75 percent addressing race with their children.

Po Bronson, author of NurtureShock and an award-winning writer on parenting issues says white parents "want to give their kids this sort of post-racial future when they're very young and they're under the wrong conclusion that their kids are colorblind. ... It's in the absence of messages of tolerance that they will naturally ... develop these skin preferences."

this is disturbing cause white kids must get the color-biased outlook from somewhere? like their teachers or peers. unless white racism is genetically determined. kindergartners would seem too young to be influenced by popular culture beyond the subliminal level. of course the survey questions could be subtly biased or leading toward this outcome.

Well look, all I was saying is that if you're really and seriously from an environment where it's always been cool for you to use the non-slur version of the word, I'm not going to get as bothered about saying you shouldn't. But I think most non-black/Caribbean* people in hip-hop know that no matter how much they share with the overall culture, this is maybe one thing they should acknowledge as a difference between themselves and some other people -- how many white people are cavalier about doing this?

(* this is an NYC perspective but, you know, there's lots of common experience here between black Americans, Caribbeans Americans consider black, and Caribbeans Americans consider Latino, and the non-black people I hear using the word most often and most comfortably tend to be in that last category.)

XPOST --

kindergartners would seem too young to be influenced by popular culture beyond the subliminal level

Dude, I'm sorry, but I just don't get this -- it's not "subliminal," it's coded into all the basics of our culture! I mean, it's like gender roles -- children do not invent those or hear about them later in life, they are being absorbed and imprinted from the get-go.

Some parents are doing something right: "4 Black children and 8 White children did not make a selection; they claimed that all of the children could be smart and, thus, they could not select just one child"

I'm going to requote you and highlight where I think you went wrong in your assumptions:

this is disturbing cause white kids must get the color-biased outlook from somewhere? like their teachers or peers. unless white racism is genetically determined. kindergartners would seem too young to be influenced by popular culture beyond the subliminal level. of course the survey questions could be subtly biased or leading toward this outcome.

Even allowing for an effect only on the subliminal level, doesn't that mean by definition that they are being bombarded by images that are subconsciously shaping their worldview towards the conclusion found in this study?

xp lol nabisco I think maybe we should make a formal tag-team system for these threads

Well look, all I was saying is that if you're really and seriously from an environment where it's always been cool for you to use the non-slur version of the word, I'm not going to get as bothered about saying you shouldn't. But I think most non-black/Caribbean* people in hip-hop know that no matter how much they share with the overall culture, this is maybe one thing they should acknowledge as a difference between themselves and some other people -- how many white people are cavalier about doing this?

(* this is an NYC perspective but, you know, there's lots of common experience here between black Americans, Caribbeans Americans consider black, and Caribbeans Americans consider Latino, and the non-black people I hear using the word most often and most comfortably tend to be in that last category.)

yep i accept that and more or less agree, and it must be said that j-love's dj tag, being a dj tag, is particularly intrusive, in-your-face and contextually weak, which adds to the disconcerting & annoying effect.

wrt to the dead kennedys, this made me dial up give me convenience on the ipod, and jello basically does that "ironically voicing the viewpoint of the enemy" thing on like half their songs

What's a DJ Tag?

xP: I thought he actually wanted to Kill the Poor!

haha yeah i know its obvious but i just hadn't listened to them in ages, it's like every song!

OK I'M WRONG

xxxp it's something you shout over the music to tell ppl who u are etc. mixtape djs have signature tags associated with them: "holiday season u shrimps!" "get familiar" "drama king!" etc.

TONY TOCA!

though a lot of the pop culture directly aimed/marketed at five year olds is self-consciously tolerant or as the right-wingers like to point out "multi-cultural" I'm not denying that kindergartners are bombarded w/all kinds of not-so-subtle affirmations of white superiority, just suggesting that they don't process this information the same way adults do.

(digging hole deeper...)

The thing is, I don't think this study supports that suggestion. Or rather, I should say that it is precisely BECAUSE they don't process things the way adults do because they haven't learned to second-guess information that makes the results unsurprising was you get past the initial shock.

agreed. but there are all kinds of mitigating factors like it would be interesting to see if the kids surveyed attended integrated schools

as a parent I've gotta say this is so far one of the weirdest/hardest things to deal with. my daughter is only 2 1/2 and is still building her vocabulary/learning to express herself and while my wife and I are conscious of surrounding her with multi-culti stuff and pointing out skin color and things like that, its hard to tell how she's processing it. when it comes to interacting with other kids and especially their parents the potential for mortification/embarassment/misunderstanding seems pretty high

it would be interesting to see if the kids surveyed attended integrated schools

they did

this study (and related ones) have been making the rounds on liberal-minded parenting blogs/sites for like a year now

I'm trying to think who would be a living positive beacon of black excellence to impressionable kids besides obama to break these biases, and i'm coming up with jocelyn elders, and geordi from star trek.

"I hated jocks in high school and always will"

liberal minded

dude let go

Bill do you have something you need to get off your chest with me, cuz I don't get it

I mean I reserve the right to hate for the rest of my life the rightwing musclebound retards that beat me up/destroyed my homework, clothes, social standing/yelled racist slurs at me/humiliated me routinely in public for 6+ years and fuiud

t would be interesting to see if the kids surveyed attended integrated schools

I now have a splitting headache from reading the survey results and AFAICT the samples were balanced between schools w/varying populations

I mean I reserve the right to hate for the rest of my life the rightwing musclebound retards that beat me up/destroyed my homework, clothes, social standing/yelled racist slurs at me/humiliated me routinely in public for 6+ years and fuiud

Well, the actual response to that is "hate the guys who did that to you, not every single person who looks like the guys who did that to you" but I presume you're smart enough to have figured that out on your own.