I don’t know why this issue continues to come up. But apparently we need to cover this again. We can cut right to the chase. Dear White people, it is NEVER okay to use the word nigga. Nigger either for that matter. Hell I don’t usually use the word. I’ve just got to drop it so it hits you with that full effect. Gwyneth Paltrow either didn’t get the memo or got so high from being on stage with Jay-Z and Kanye doing Niggas in Paris IN PARIS eleven times and she temporarily went insane and sent out this tweet.
There are so many things wrong with this moment. Let’s break them down shall we?
Let’s get this out the way first. I don’t want to hear that nigga is right in the name of the song, so she should have a right to say it. I know exactly where they stop the song and whatever the song is called they actually only say nigga twice in the song up to that point. By contrast, they say fuck 6 times, shit 8 times, and bitch twice. You want a scapegoat song when you need an excuse to say nigga? Listen to this Body Work by Pusha T. I believe the total count is 49…mostly in the second verse.
Blame this epidemic on that joint, not Jay-Z and Kanye. Great song by the way.
So Gwyneth shouldn’t have done it, it was a horrible idea and there is nothing you can tell me that will make it okay. I’m going to tell you why.
REASON #1: Using the word Nigga is dangerous.
There are only a few reasons another person is allowed to kill you under the law. First, you break into their house. Second, you try to kill them or one of their loved ones. Third, they catch you fucking their wife/husband. Finally, calling a black person nigger. Under the fighting words doctrine, you can legally catch an ass whoopin. Look at that list, the rest of the items are right in the Ten Commandments. Thou Shall Not Steal. Thou Shall Not Kill. Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery. I feel like if they had let a Black dude get a book in the Bible, the book of Rodney would have slipped in Thou Shall Not Say Nigga. When the law says, fuck it you are on your own, turn back. The law can’t help you.
Heres the other problem with Gwyneth sending out her tweet. Some time immediately thereafter, she realized she fucked up and needed a way out. Solution number one should have been to apologize, but instead, she went the OTHER way. She tried to find the nearest black man to help her out with a nigga pass. Kanye and Jay, must have still been busy on stage, so she went for the next best thing. The Dream.
Really? Do you really think The Dream has enough street cred to just un-nigga a nigga situation? Just because he is wearing a big ass fitted hat AND stunna shades AND a fat gold chain AND has a suede and leather collar popped? Come on. Dream tried to pretend like he was tweeting from her account. He didn’t even try to issue her a nigga pass, he tried to use his own. That’s plagiarism. Fraud. Chicanery. In fact, lets just assume The Dream DID send the tweet from Gwyneth’s phone after she logged into her account. Let’s assume this is true. So the point is The Dream is using his blackness as verification of the situation. In that case, he also undermined his own credibility at the same time. If it was the Dream, and he is so thugged out he couldn’t help but to send out that text. What the hell is “tyty, beehigh”? If it was him, that becomes the most offensive thing in the tweet. What they hell does that mean Dream? Huh? You don’t know because you didn’t send that shit. Siddown.
Gwyneth, next time try to get a cosign from Samuel L. Jackson, Cornell West, a member of the Nation of Islam, someone. damn. Maybe Kanye would have helped you out.
Maybe not.
Look, I don’t just bring up problems without offering solutions. I’ve got something that will save White people for the rest of eternity. I can take this issue off the table immediately. Invented right here at Us Versus Them. Instead of nigga, just say nilla. It’s easy. Gwyneth was on stage. How hilarious would it be if she tweeted out “They’ve got Nillas in Paris too!” Instant classic. No one can ever get mad at you because a Nilla is a delicious little cookie. The reference is always hilarious. You can use it freely and it is never offensive. Feel free to refer people directly to me if anyone has any questions.
Just do it, trust me it will be wonderful for everyone. If you decide not to follow my advice…then you deserve this:
That never gets old.
-Brock
P.S. Gwyneth, just say you’re sorry. The word offends a lot of people. It’s wrapped up in a lot of shit. I’m not saying the rules about the use and the frequency by which Black people use the word makes any sense. I can’t even defend it. It’s silly, really, but thems the rules. Deal with it.
Brock,
Props on “They’ve got Nillas in Paris too!” As for Gwyneth dropping the N-bomb, I am going to give old girl a pass only because before I knew she rolled with Jay-Z & Kanye I thought she had a stick up her ass. She got caught up in the moment since she got her hood pass. In the grand scheme of things, we are too caught up on who can use the word and who can’t. Good, bad or ugly either we all use it or we all stop using it. Problem solved.
I gotta be honest, I don’t get it. The word is all over the place, desensitization was inevitable. When it’s a slur, it’s a slur and worth getting offended over. But when it isn’t . . . it isn’t. Plus she didn’t drop the N-bomb good and proper. She gave you the double asterisk to let you know even though she couldn’t resist the opportunity to make the song reference, she still knows she can’t come right out and hit you with the full and proper version.
The real problem here is that anybody gave a shit what Gwenyth Paltrow had to say about anything.
As an aside, why do completely unrelated celebrities ever feel the need to walk out onto the stage at their celebrity friend’s concerts? It makes no sense to me…who’s there to see them…
“Fighting Words Doctrine” HA! The “Book of Rodney” literally had me rolling. (Side story: there was a book of Bootu. I really wanted it in my bio. Problem was the pages were all greasy & sticking together, and no one had a formal class on ebonics so they couldn’t decipher most of the text. I told the fellas I wanted it in there in original form, but I got stoned and shit got published while I was out) Doesn’t Dream look hungry in that pic? Like somebody just walked by him with a blizzard….or maybe it was a 44oz soda.
Okay, jokes aside. I need some things to be explained to me, “there is nothing you can tell me that will make it okay.” & “I’m not saying the rules about the use and the frequency by which Black people use the word makes any sense. I can’t even defend it.” For real?
How can anyone rationalize this? This is like me telling Mrs. Jezus “Look, I am going to get some side, but you can’t. I will bring the side to the house, have pictures of her on my Facebook, send some tweets and shit, but you can’t do any of that cause it’s disrespectful to me.” Da fuck? I have to agree with Rush & Ian. It’s either cool for everyone, or it’s not. Like Ian said, she didn’t even spell the shit out. Hell she might read UvT and meant Nilla’s in Paris. Do you know for sure? Folks just assumed the ** took the place of 2 G’s. Maybe them’s was L’s she was ** for? Also, I need someone to explain to me how when a black person hears the word from another black person it’s okay, regardless of context. If they hear it from a white person they lose their mind and it’s time to fight, regardless of context. Do some nilla’s use it in a racist manner, absolutely but it has always seemed pretty simple to distinguish between the 2 to me. When I grew up, the word was in all the music I listened to. I literally spent 6 days a week on the courts in the summer. It was said all the time. Did I use it, sure. I used it around white folks and black folks. I literally never had a problem.
I just don’t understand how in this day & age when people are more educated than ever before, when people fight for equality for everyone, regardless of color/sex/sexual preference we are still losing our minds over a word.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent
@Ian and @Jezus,
Here’s an example:
Say you are sitting with your boys who you have known forever, and you have a running joke where “Like when facked your mom” is your insider version of “that’s what she said”. You don’t take that dude seriously, he’s never facked you mom, you’ve never facked his mom, you both know it is a joke. You know all that and aren’t the least bit threatened by anything going on there. That is the context where the N word has no power.
Now, imagine your Dad starts saying it. Technically true…your dad is facking your mom, that makes you feel uncomfortable as shit, but there really isn’t anything you can do about it. Some people don’t give a damn if their dad talks that way, others think it is terrible, others would think that is incredibly mentally damaging to the child of a father who would talk about their mother that way. That is when people are using the N-word out in society and lots of different people have lots of different opinions about the effects of the word.
Finally, let’s say there is a cat who is having an affair with your mom, out there facking your mom on the side. You’re not sure, but a lot of people have kinda hinted to it. He rolls up on you and says, I’m facking your mom. That mothafacka deserves to get his ass whooped. Immediately.
See how uncomfortable you are right now? See how hard you had to fight to make sure the image of your best friend/dad/some random dude fucking your mom didn’t pop into your mind? You can’t control that shit. All those situations are completely different.
If none of that worked for you UvT style, then this dude breaks it down as well as I’ve ever heard it.
http://www.animalnewyork.com/genre/films/
1st off, I wasn’t uncomfortable at all. Here’s why: I am well aware that my parents had secks at least twice. Just because I know of an act taking place, does not mean I visualize it. I know my dog is going to take a shit today, the thought of him dropping a hot one did not pop into my head. 2nd, I am well aware that my potna’s aren’t smanging my moms. So when shit like that was ever said to me it never bothered me. Same goes for random guy. By your analogy, if I see you in the skreets and say “Brock yo momma’s a heaux”, it’s on? I mean, you know it’s not true. You know there is 99.9999% chance I have no idea about your mom’s heauxability. So why would you get hot over it? Now, if I got pictures………
Ok let me write this comment while watching this video…..45 secs in, this guy is annoying as hell…..1:30…..I don’t agree with his “arm around the date” analogy. Here’s why: On the surface it sounds good, but dudes walk into bars world wide and put their arm around girls and drop some pickup line. Now if she is sitting with a guy and it’s obvious, yeah shit could pop off. Just like some black people will flip out at hearing it, but not all. So by this analogy, you should never holler at a chick at the bar cause she might be with someone?
I get that you are saying “well my boys & I are in on it so we can say it :: we are all black so we can say it.” But your boys aren’t peddling “like I facked your mom” to the masses then getting pissed when randoms are walking up to you saying “I facked your moms”. If it’s an “inside” joke then stop using it outside, all the time, everyday, making money off it. That’s it, plain and simple.
@Jezus I thought your parents didn’t have sex. What happened to immaculate conception?
Mom & dad didn’t, now mom & Joseph……
I still can’t stand this mufucka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPdFrW076R0
@Jezuz I cannot be the only one on this blog who thinks your team us cred is shady at best. Brock drops a funny line about having a book of Rodney. You take your imma son of god delusional schtick and decide to try to be funny and topical with the mention of the lost book of Bootu which I guess could have been funny in the right hands. In your hands…AHNT.
@ Rosy
I try to make jokes on just about every post. Some are well received, some aren’t.
its not acceptable because it aint thats it and thats all
It’s irrelevant.. people need to just calm down and remove the stick from up their ass. If you don’t stop saying it yourself then don’t expect anyone else to.
@Jezuz We cannot all be Chris Rock. Plus throwing out greasy pages and ebonics c’mon that’s just lame, sophomoric, and unimaginative.
@Fresh oh please…why is it so hard for white people to get that they cannot say it. Who cares who else is saying it juts don’t say it. Period.
Keep upda goot work yall. Ima list ya in my links. Peace.
i agree with you brock
racist white people feint ignorance to get away with it for years
kanye catched a shitstorm of anger and upset from white folks for interriupting taylor swift
where is the outrage for this sort of bs?
this is a legit dealbreaker
if you utter the nword and you arent black
i will never fuck with you like you’re on crack
everyone who is actually debating the point of this post is just a racist looking for an excuse to say the nword
whyelse would they be so hellbend on using it
words are more powerfull than swords
and they dont want to get rid of a word that lets them pujt blacks in their place
but blacks arent taking it
so if you say the n-word
no blaack person will ever deal with you ever again
asher roth for example doesnt have a single black fan becasue of this….
last time i checked french montana was white, he hes like using the word nigga at least one time per song.