The N*%!@ Epidemic
Story by G. Melesaine // Art by Adrian Avila

Nigga. Just seeing the word is controversial to me. Am I even allowed to write such a word? I hear this word accentuated in almost every conversation, nigga this and nigga that. The word, in my perspective is extremely controversial in American society. To understand the controversy you have to understand its history and its immortal career.

The word "nigga" is a word that evolved from the french word "negre" and Spanish word "negro” which eventually sailed its way to America and was pronounced out of some rednecks mouth as "nigger". "Nigger" eventually dropped its "er" and bought the vowel "a". Nigger was used as a racial epithet by white people to depreciate and label any person of African descent because white folks were too lazy to learn names.

Now during the word's career as "nigger" it was purposely used to dehumanize dark skinned slaves mainly from Africa. Their African names were diminished and this was to pose as a prison number for each of them, except every slave had the same number. When a master raped a slave he would call her a "nigger" and the baby resulting from the rape would be called a "house nigger." Was adding "house" somehow supposed to lessen the harshness of the word? When slaves were whipped until they bled they were called "nigger", and when a black person was hanging dead off a rope they were called "nigger".

Now here begins the controversy of the word, since its image has been proliferated through commercialization and its replacement of the "er" with an "a", is it possible to make and change the nature of this word knowing its hostile career? And if so, are there any restrictions on who can use the word?

To be honest, I was ignorant of the words history and now feel like I marred myself for getting caught up into this "Epidemic". When I was living in the projects I heard that word more than I heard God. Some even referred to God as "my nigga". In the projects it's like a password to the ghetto, the use of the word identifies that you are from the projects. It is not used as racially as it is sexist. In the projects George Bush is a nigga, Bruce Lee is a nigga, Michael Jackson is a nigga. Any man no matter what ethnicity, age, culture, or their financial status; he is and always will be a "nigga". I myself have grown so accustom to saying the word that I think it is eternally ingrained in my vocabulary and I am weak for not trying hard enough to stop using it. Because to me, the word is just like any other useless derogatory word we waste our breath on, such as bitch, nip, flip, wetback, fag, fob, and all the other useless vocab that continually appears in our daily conversations. Knowing that I don't have the intellectual vocabulary advantage over rich, suburban kids it makes me bitter that the word has become a modern day fad for little suburban rich kids who think that being from the ghetto is the "in" thing, but I only blame that on the commercialization.

A lot of movies and music have proliferated the word's image. Even as I walk through the doors of the AFFIRM (an educational program targeting African Americans) office in my school to borrow money I see the word posted on the door, but it reads like a calligramme poem: Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished. It comes from the late rapper, Tupac, who really tried to change the image of the word. He once said in an interview that the difference between "nigger" and "nigga" was that niggers are the ones with ropes around their necks hanging off trees and "niggas" were the ones with gold ropes around their necks, hanging out at the clubs.

When N.W.A blew up it was then that even the white folks that were getting beat on in the riots claimed they were a "Nigga With Attitude". N.W.A were rap gods to me, the west coast finally had a voice in hip hop and it was real shit no "hippit to the hippity hop" shit (don't trip, that's my song). They were the voices for the ghetto that no one knew existed and the name explained it, but the thing that was astonishing was that the majority of people who bought the album and attended their concerts where white. Niggas With Attitudes were being sold as a hard core "take no bullshit" image that a lot of rich white kids wanted to portray and it became cool to be a "nigga."

Many people I talk to say the word is only controversial because we make it an issue. I remember being scolded in class for using the word and the teacher asked me, "How do you think Julian and Vernon (the only black students in my class) would feel if they heard you use that word?" Being a no nonsense, smart mouth I replied, "Why did you point them out? Because they're black you think the word is only for black people, then that means your racist!" That racist accusation eventually led me to be terminated from her class and gain popularity for being a rebel.

This year I attended the Brave New Voices Poetry Slam sponsored by Youth Speaks. One poet, a small, young, black girl wrote a spoken word piece on the word. It struck me then how naive and weak I was. Our language is filled with the most beautiful words that hold so much prestige, but still to this day we continue to call each other "nigga." I know this is hypocritical because I still can't stop saying the word, so when you hear it come out of my mouth scold my dumbass.