AfroerotiK

Erotic provocateur, racially-influenced humanist, relentless champion for the oppressed, and facilitator for social change, Scottie Lowe is the brain child, creative genius and the blood, sweat, and tears behind AfroerotiK. Intended to be part academic, part educational, and part sensual, she, yes SHE gave birth to the website to provide people of African descent a place to escape the narrow-mined, stereotypical, limiting and oft-times degrading beliefs that abound about our sexuality. No, not all Black men are driven by lust by white flesh or to create babies and walk away. No, not all Black women are promiscuous welfare queens. And as hard as it may be to believe, no, not all gay Black men are feminine, down low, or HIV positive. Scottie is putting everything on the table to discuss, debate, and dismantle stereotypes in a healthy exchange of ideas. She hopes to provide a more holistic, informed, and enlightened discussion of Black sexuality and dreams of helping couples be more open, honest, and adventurous in their relationships.

Showing posts with label slave mentality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slave mentality. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was the WORST in Human History




In the history of human beings on the planet, there has never been such an atrocity as that of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In sheer numbers alone, it decimated the continent of Africa of its strong, child-bearing, healthy citizens. Think about the impact that had on the people left. SIXTY million Africans were stolen, not six million, not sixteen million, but SIXTY million Africans were kidnapped, slaughtered, left to die, murdered, and enslaved. There has been no other example of slavery BASED ON RACE that has destroyed a people's history, culture, identity, and religion. Slavery, based on race, does not have the same detrimental effects as slavery based on class.

You CAN NOT objectify someone for their hair texture, facial features, skin color, or other inherent differences if they are the same race as the enslaver. You can't inflict psychological damage on someone because you tell them how inferior they are to you because of their skin color, eye color, or hair texture, if they look exactly like you. Additionally generational enslavement of Africans erased our history of self. No other enslaved people have had their history annihilated by enslavement, certainly not to the extent of Africans who were enslaved and their descendents. Every other enslaved people have been able to keep their names, their religion, their sense of who they are, they've been able to pass on stories that belong to them and them alone about their history prior to enslavement.

So with all that being said, there is no other example of enslavement that exists in Earth's history that even comes close to the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Sure, there have been horrific examples of human atrocities against one another, but none share the collective of circumstances that make up the horrors of Africans who were enslaved. What the Natives endured as the hands of heinous white people is unspeakable and horrific, but they were not transported 1000s of miles from their homeland, they were not forced to assume different identities and relinquish the stories of their past. They still have the traditions and rites of passage that existed long before hateful white men every landed on these shores. Sure, a lot were lost, and it's tragic to be sure but it's not the same cultural annihilation as Africans who were enslaved.

Jews were enslaved for seven years. Their Holocaust was horrible but it was not generational. Jews were not born in concentration camps, never to have known freedom a day in their lives, they were not socialized from birth to believe themselves inferior. After their ordeal, they retained their names, their sense of belonging in the world, their God, their art, their songs, their traditions. Jews have an identity that belongs to them from the beginning of time (or so they rather arrogantly claim) but slaves born in this country have NO such history to hold on to.

If you steal a person's identity, their sense of belonging in the universe, if you take their traditions and practices and force yours upon them, you have destroyed the very thing that makes human beings have an identity. I REPEAT, NO OTHER FORM OF SLAVERY HAS DONE THAT TO ANY OTHER PEOPLE. We do not have a language we can speak, we were forced to adopt a God who did not look like us, who we had no relationship to other than that which the slave master gave us. The long term effects of that make the Trans-Atlantic slave trade exponentially worse than any other example of slavery in the history of the world.

So, all you people who say that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was not the worse in history, ask yourself these questions: Were the people kidnapped and transported to another country where they did not speak the language, where they did not share the same history or culture, where they could be readily identified by their physical characteristics? Were they able to secretly practice their religion, recite tales of their history to their children? Were they forced to take on different names, worship a different God, to the point that the have NO clue what religion or history they possessed prior to enslavement. Was their enslavement generational, meaning were they born into a system of slavery that was dehumanizing and race based that taught their children, infants, babies, and toddlers from birth to death, that they were inferior simply because of their color. If a person were to escape in another form of slavery, would they be able to integrate into society seamlessly, create a new identity and fit in without being recognized? Ask yourself if ALL of those conditions exist in any other form of slavery. Ask yourself about the sheer numbers. Ask if the numbers of people kidnapped and enslaved would leave nothing but the sick and the elderly and the very small children in villages to survive, what impact that had on them.

So in closing, I'll state again, that no matter how hard arrogant white men want to insist that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was not the worst example of slavery in history, they are WRONG. It is their need to deny the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade that is racist and ignorant. IF the slave trade wasn't in fact as horrible as I claim, descendents of slaves wouldn't be at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, we wouldn't be incarcerated in outrageous percentages, we wouldn't be as psychologically damaged as we are. Those who want to claim that the Irish had it just as bad simply can't because the evidence is not there to substantiate it. If their treatment had been as bad, they would be suffering in the same ways that African Americans now suffer. They are not a better people, able to endure more hardships, they are not more resilient or inherently superior to African Americans and able to rebound and excel because they are smarter, have more integrity, etc.  It’s because they are white and they can fit in without being denigrated for their hair and skin.  Their treatment wasn't as bad thus their ability to rebound is much easier. They were not denigrated for their stringy hair and pale, pink skin, flat butts, and little dicks that looked exactly like that of their enslavers; they were not singled out because they worshiped a God their captors didn't understand.

Africans who were enslaved were not truly inferior, as racist white men would have you believe. We are not inherently criminal, we are not genetically predetermined to be lazy or stupid. Those are all things that were the cumulative effects of our enslavement. We were socialized to believe ourselves to be inferior and yet we still excel despite being subjected to the worst example of slavery in the history of the planet.

Scottie Lowe 2012

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Slave Hair

I remember when I had slave hair. I call it slave hair because not only is it the hair that slaves where told was more beautiful than their own, natural, nappy hair, but I was also enslaved to it. I couldn't go outside when it was raining, I couldn't go swimming, I couldn't have sex with a man right after I got it done, I couldn't scratch my scalp right before I was going to get my six week reapplication of deadly chemicals, I had to live my life around making sure my naps didn't show.

I had all the arguments against relaxed hair PERFECTED. I would argue with any woman who suggested that my straight hair was anything other than a mere styling option. I convinced myself that I was right and that any woman that even suggested that relaxed hair was some sort of Eurocentric standard of beauty was insane.

I was the same as all the women who rationalize their self-hatred, who condemn me, and who defend their slave hair.

Then, I evolved. I grew. I got strong. I put aside the memories of my grandmother telling me that nappy hair was ugly. I rejected the comments, jokes, and taunts of little boys telling me that my natural hair wasn't pretty like white girls. At the time, I was becoming more spiritually aware, I stopped eating meat, I was becoming healthier all around. I was still holding on to my slave hair. I was terrified that if I let go of my slave hair, that I'd be ugly. I was horrified that if I let go of my slave hair, that I'd never get a job, I'd never get a man, that the world would look at me as something less than human and certainly not beautiful. Then one day, I woke up and I realized that history is prologue. I accepted that my natural, nappy hair was my birthright, that I could be beautiful with the hair that God intended me to have, without chemicals, without the messages that every little Black girl gets beaten into them that tells her to be ashamed of her natural hair. It was only then that I became liberated from my slave hair. It was only then that I became free.

Monday, March 16, 2009

We Must Excel, Not Just Exist

We Must Excel, Not Just Exist

We, as descendants of slaves, as people of color, MUST strive for excellence in all that we do. We must live according to principles of excellence in our daily lives, spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally. Living in alignment with excellence means making a conscious choice to do what’s right over what’s easy, what’s comfortable, or what’s familiar. In lieu of spending hours gossiping on the phone or endless hours on the computer in the pursuit of meaningless sex, we must examine our selves, our lives, and look to grow, mature, and evolve.

I challenge you to stop thinking of yourself as better just because you go to church every Sunday, dressed in your overpriced fineries to show off to the congregation, when you step over the homeless on Monday without so much as an ounce of compassion or love in your heart for those who need a helping hand. We must stop trying to get over on the system, trying to figure out the easy way to get something for nothing, and rather make the choice to have integrity, to do what’s right for the community, not just yourself. It’s time now to consider the ramifications and consequences of our actions and stop living for the moment or the almighty dollar. If we consider the feelings of others, if everyone considers the feelings of others, we can transform ourselves from a selfish, insensitive, immature community to a compassionate, giving, enlightened family. Find a reason to see the good in someone, to reach out to another because you connect on a deeper level, not just because you think they have something to offer you, or because you want to feel insecure and petty jealousy.

Speak truth to power. Hold your tongue when you feel the urge, the driving and compulsive need to lie, and utter only those words that are true. Embrace honesty with your entire being and reprogram your brain from your conditioning that tells you to create stories and deceptions that make you feel better about yourself and learn to be honest and truthful with yourself so that you might be able to be honest and truthful with others.

We must accept our greatness, our royalty, and our divinity with humility, grace, and modesty. Would a Queen exchange her body for a car payment or money to get a new pair of shoes? Would a King create a prince or princess only to leave them unprotected and un-nurtured? Would a true manifestation of the Divine be more concerned with a car, clothes, or plasma TV than in helping those less fortunate?

Ask yourself, are you living a life of excellence or do you merely exist? Are you striving to become a better person every day? Are you actually trying to become a better person: not richer, not more attractive, not get more stuff, not sleep with more women, not use more men, not cheat the system, not beat the man. Are you striving to dispel the myths and combat the stereotypes? Are you daily striving to learn more, to push yourself further, to excel in all you do?

Pick up a book, go back to college, take a night class, use the Internet to learn out our history instead of just wasting your life away.


Copyright 2008 AfroerotiK All Rights Reserved

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Healthy Black Sexuality Part 2

I don't even think we can get to a discussion of making love vs. having sex (or God forbid vs. fucking) if we can't even mention sex without the morality police stepping up and deeming that sex can't be discussed, mentioned, or debated.

Black Enterprise Magazine approached me, approached ME, about doing an article on my work as a Black female entrepreneur. I was excited as I was about to get the national exposure I have so long been seeking to combat that wretched Zane and her horribly offensive and degrading crap she calls erotica. Finally, I was going to get a national platform to talk about healthy Black sexuality. They told me that I would be getting a list of interview questions in an email and that I was to fill them out and send them back. I waited for that email, and waited, and waited. Finally, I contacted the young lady again and I told her that I hadn't received the interview questions and that I was anxious to get them. She then told me that Black Enterprise readers weren't interested in "my topic" and that they had a much more conservative readership. At which point I asked her if Black Enterprise readers had sex and she promptly hung up on me.

There is a knee jerk reaction in the Black middle class community that kicks in every time there is mention of sex. We can't even have academic discussions of sex without someone deeming that "those sorts of conversations aren't appropriate for this forum." The more we compartmentalize our sex, the more we allow our sexuality to be defined as dirty. Sure, not every conversation is appropriate for every venue but not every one is inappropriate either. The very same people who are sooooo quick to try to silence me at the mere mention of the word erotic are the very same people masturbating to images of pornography that degrade, demean, and objectify us as a people because they refuse to allow any other avenue of sexual expression to be acceptable.

People ask me all the time why I started writing erotica. My response is and has always been, that I am a single, highly-educated, African-centered, Black woman who is not aroused by dogs, thugs, pimps, drug dealers, basketball players, or rappers and I'm not a ghetto hoochie, ghetto whore, nor am I a ghetto big booty freak. Where do I turn for sexual arousal? I started writing erotica because there was nothing that spoke to me. I started writing erotica because I don't find interracial images of black men fucking white women to be arousing and I'm not represented by Black women with weaves, fake nails, and stripper shoes who have no clue what it is to be sensual, only sexual. I'm a 42 year old woman who hasn't been in a relationship in so long that it boggles the mind and I'm tired of men approaching me and thinking that just because I have a big booty and they have a big SUV, that I'm going to have sex with them. That's why I started writing erotica. I wanted to have something that spoke to men, that represented the types of relationships that I was looking for, that get me wet, that allowed me to masturbate to something that represented my view of Black life. I can't be the only woman, the only Black person, who wants or needs to find a sexual outlet that isn't sanitized and sterile but that isn't degrading and cliche either.

There is always this "what you are doing is corrupting children" backlash that I get. I had sex when I was 16 years old. I was far from the first girl of my peers to have sex, in fact, losing one's virginity at around that age was pretty average among my very middle class, suburban peers. That was LONG before BET made Black women out to be freaks, bitches, and ho's. That was long before Zane's books, portraying Black women as nymphomaniac adulterous gold digging, superficial whores, were passed around like a virus. That was LONG before children had access to the internet where every vile, disgusting, perverse sexual act is available to view for free with the click of a mouse. To assert that children, young teens, are going to be warped by my discussions of sexuality is laughable. I'm the only voice that is speaking out and saying that sex should be about love, intimacy, openness, communication, freedom, and responsibility. If anything, young teens need to be exposed to my brand of erotica in order to counter the negative images they see at every turn and to combat the oblivious parents who think that if they don't talk about sex, that their children will somehow escape being exposed to it.

Of course, there's always the, "Blacks aren't the only one's who are victims of the same behavior" argument. My concern is not other communities. My concern is the fact that 7 out of 10 Black children are being born out of wedlock. My concern is that a Black woman in her mid 30s is more likely to be struck by lightning than to get married. My concern is that African Americans are dying of AIDS at a disproportionate rate than any other race. So while other races, creeds, and whathaveyou may very well be steeped in sexual dysfunction, it is affecting US more detrimentally. There are scores of Black men who are impregnating white women to feed the sexual fetish of white couples to have their wives "bred black." There are scores of Black men going into white couples bedrooms every night of the week to feed white couple's racist Nigger Buck Mandingo fantasies. There are young Black women who have never had sex unless it involves some sort of exchange of money or services. Those things are the perils that will destroy our race if we continue to censor our conversations about sex and let some absurd religious/pious sanctimony dictate that sex can't be discussed.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

God Doesn't Have a Dick

Any religion that teaches that God is a man, and that woman is made for man, oppresses women to a state of unnatural subservience and insanity. If God is a man, and man has a penis, then anyone with a penis is perceived to be god-like. Women, obviously without a penis, are socialized through their oppressive religion created by people with penises, to feel inferior. The subconscious mind of females knows that women are not really inferior, that God could not possibly have a gender, that women are the equal and very much needed compliments to men not their subjects. The conscious mind of the female believes itself to be inferior, to be cursed, and to be dependent upon men, so it sets up a state of disharmony in the psyche of both men and women. The belief that men have some inherent privilege or preferred status with God a.) leads men to think that they can do no wrong and that their penis entitles them to rule over women, and b.) leads women to think that their lives will fall apart without a man, that they must forgive their man any wrongdoing, and that they must compete with the next woman in order to prove their worth as a woman. It is only when we decide to restore a holistic balance to our relationships, based on equality of genders, will they heal.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

I AM my hair

If you ever watch that show "Yo Mama" on MTV, every show, they crack on someone for having nappy hair and everyone in the audience rolls with laughter. They aren't anything more than slaves on the plantation. Nothing's changed from 200 years ago. It certainly isn't debatable that any time you tell a child that there is something inherently wrong with them, they are going to compensate for that with low self-esteem. Women with straight hair think that because they think they are beautiful, because society tells them that they are beautiful with straight hair, that means that they don't have issues of self-hatred. If I offered women $50,000 to give up straightening their hair, I wouldn't get two women to take my offer. If I said, I'll buy you a house and you can live there mortgage free for the rest of your life, all you have to do is wear your hair in a natural style, women wouldn't do it. They are terrified of their natural hair, they hate it. They'd rather be in debt and wearing a weave than natural and financially secure.


The hair issue is unique to Black women because we are the only race of women who was kidnapped from our homeland and enslaved by a different race of people who used our color and our physical features to ridicule. Slavery in Africa wasn't based on race. It's impossible to denigrate someone for their nose, their lips, for their hair, if they have the exact same features as you do. White people used their diseased sense of superiority to tell enslaved Africans that everything about them was ugly. There is no other race of women who has had to endure such psychological torture.


Black hair care is a multi billion dollar business. I've always said that if white people wanted to effectively disable the black community, all they would have to do is stockpile all the relaxers, straightening combs, fake hair, etc. Within six weeks, Black women would be selling their souls and selling out the race for their straight hair fix.


Think about who we consider beautiful. Beyonce has a blonde weave. Every time I see her on a magazine cover, I say, "Who is that white woman?" We don't love our Black skin, we don't love our thick full lips, we don't love our wide noses, and we sure as hell don't love our natural nappy hair. That's fucked up we don’t' see ourselves as beautiful. Is there any wonder why the state of Black relationships is so poor? We have Black men trying to get women who look as white as possible and Black women denying that changing their hair to look white has anything to do with jumping through hoops to distance themselves from their natural blackness.


If Black women woke up tomorrow, and they all said, "No more chemicals," I love myself the way God intended me to be, white people would be terrified. They would be terrified that we don't aspire  to be look like them anymore. They would be terrified that we are defining our own standards of beauty. They would try to enslave us again, they would lose their fucking minds. They wouldn't be able to deal with an empowered people that didn't think the world revolved around them. They need to feel superior and they do as long as we are frying our natural hair, trying to mimic them. That gives them their power. If we were to stand up in mass and say, "I don't think long blonde hair and blue eyes are attractive, I think that big thick lips and wide noses and nappy hair is gorgeous white people would start a war against us. (Don't worry.  Black people can't even think like that we've been so brainwashed but it's a nice thought)


I've heard a many a brotha tell me that he refused to have his daughter get her hair cut. Little black girls don't have a chance if their mothers and grandmothers are telling us how nappy and unruly our natural hair is and our fathers (absentee most of the time) are telling us we are only lovable if we have long hair. Is there any wonder we are fucked up? (Damn, I just saw a commercial for the All Star Game and there was a shot of Beyonce and for a split second, I said, "Who is that white woman?") Black men HATE nappy hair more than Black women. That's why they go after the Latina, White, Asian woman. Those women will give them children with "good hair" and light skin. Let's not be naive. Black women have to have straight hair or they are afraid Black men will never look at them. Add to the fact that slavery told us to be submissive to our men and you have women terrified to show their blackness.


The fear of being seen as gay is sooooooo pervasive in Black women. They might not mind being seen as bisexual but they sure as hell don't want to be seen as masculine. And everyone knows that short hair means you are a butch, right? Once again, we are allowing other people to define us. I tell little children who ask me why I don't have any hair that there are a beautiful people in Kenya that all wear their hair like mine and that short hair is a sign of beauty. They look at me like I'm crazy and their mothers usually tell them that I'm gay when they think I can't hear.


I can’t support India Irie and that song. She’s got women with weaved-out, blond, straight hair running around saying, “I am not my hair.” You know what? I AM my hair. I am my naps. I am my African wooly hair. I am every African woman who was beaten and told that she had to cover her hair or lose her life. I AM every slave woman who loved her nappy hair and who had to see white women and mulatto slaves get preferential treatment for having straight hair. I will NEVER as long as I live let straight hair define my beauty.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Be careful who you idolize



Last year, during the Katrina horror, when Kanye West said that George Bush didn’t like Black people, the number of Black people who put him on a pedestal was off the charts. I stood as the lone person who refused to give him any accolades. First, it doesn’t take any genius to figure out that Bush doesn’t like Black people. He stated the obvious, big shit. Second, his popular Golddigger was out at the same time, reinforcing to all of America that poor black men are in fact niggers. In his Katrina benefit song, he called the people of New Orleans niggers. What the fuck sort of message is that sending to white people who you want to have compassion for those victims of racism? You get no props if you are promoting Black women as gold diggers and you get points taken away if you are using the N word in a song and urging white people to sing along at your concerts. Kanye West is far from a scholar or an activist, he’s not even remotely articulate and yet Black people lifted him up as some sort of new school voice of the oppressed hero. I got all sorts of grief when I challenged people to think seriously about whom they gave praises to and of course I was attacked and people defended him by saying, “He’s not calling ALL Black women golddiggers . . . The N word has changed, it means something positive now.” When you start making excuses for your make shift idols right off the bat, that’s a clear indication that they don’t have what it takes to be idols in the first damn place.

Now, we have Mr. West, saying in Essence magazine, that the only attractive women are mixed and he refers to biracial and light skinned women as mutts. Nice. While I’m sure he speaks for a great many Black men, and his sentiments reflect a reality that we don’t want to discuss, Mr. West, and his color struck fans are nothing more than little nigger slaves on the plantation, repeating what the massa told them to believe. Biracial people are not more attractive than dark skinned people. We have been SOCIALIZED to believe that biracial and light skinned people are more attractive because the slave master gave them the stamp of approval, declared them to have more value.

“Well, I can’t help what I’m attracted to and I’m attracted to light skinned women, it’s not my fault.” “You’re just jealous, you’re just hating because you aren’t light.” Those are the number one uninformed, ridiculous statements I hear from men in response to any discussion that stems from the glorification of light skinned women. You can’t help what features you are attracted to in a person but your preferences are shaped by the messages that you were given. Your grandmother told you how pretty that little light skin girl was, you saw how people ranted and raved over the little girl with “good hair,” you sat around with all the little boys in the neighbor hood and looked at pictures of porno mags with white women in them, it stands to reason that you would grow up and be attracted to women with white or damn near white features. Acknowledgment of that fact is the first step towards correcting your misperceptions. But do Black men really find dark skinned women attractive? No.

Black women are ugly. Wide noses are ugly, big lips are ugly, dark skin is ugly. Isn’t that what massa told us? Did African men see African women as ugly prior to our enslavement? No, of course not. It’s only after we were told by the slave master that mulattos and octoroons were the prettiest that we started to believe that. It’s then that we hated the features that made us beautiful. Kanye West and all those who think like him, and there are many, are convinced that light skinned women are the most attractive women and there’s nothing anyone can say to convince them otherwise because they believe that Black is ugly. They run off to Brazil to find the perfect mixed mutt, they use women like toys who are dark because they wouldn’t be seen in public with them.
And Black women are falling right in line with these dysfunctional men. Light skinned women believe that they have more value because they are light. They voluntarily identify themselves as redboned and yellow, as if that’s a benefit. Dark skinned women try to compensate for not being light by proving how sexual they are, how big their asses are, how willing they are to accept any ole trifiling behavior Black men dish out in an effort to show how supportive Black women can be. We raise our daughters to believe the diseased mindsets of the slave. Ninety seven percent of all media shows Black men with lighter skinned women. And then we act shocked when Mr. West calls light skinned women mutts and wonder how he could have said something so crass.

What Mr. West has done is articulate his self hatred. He hates women with features like his own. Until we can rid ourselves of this diseased perspective as a people, until we can recognize how detrimental it is to continue with the beliefs of the slave master, we will be forever enslaved. Kanye West is not worthy to be praised, he’s not even worthy of celebrity. He’s a minstrel bucking and dancing for Mr. Charlie who happens to have a very public platform. Unfortunately what comes out of his mouth is ignorant. It’s a sad commentary on a society that lifts up the dysfunctional as some sort of spokesperson and everything that comes out of his mouth is diseased. Maybe one day, Black America will celebrate someone who actually has something intelligent to say out of his mouth.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Shit ain't Changed

Black people are hysterical. We really are a comical people. We have internalized racism to the point of insanity and we justify it, throwing logic out the window. Somehow, Black people have been convince that the N word is now a term of affection simply because it can be heard on the radio and TV, we now think that the word has a positive meaning. Some uniformed clown said, "oh, we changed the meaning of the word," and everyone said, "Ohhh, yeah, we changed the meaning." The meaning of the word hasn't changed one bit since we first landed on these shores. We might USE it as a term of affection but that’s a far cry from the meaning the word being changed. If a woman says, "That nigga didn't pay his child support," or, “girl, that nigga don’t have a job,” I'm almost positive that she doesn't mean it as a term of endearment. When Chris Rock does his Black people vs niggers, I can promise you that he doesn't mean wonderful person. Pay attention to how the word is used on a daily basis. It’s not used interchangeably with my dear brother, it is used as a way of saying black man. How has that changed from slavery? The meaning of the word hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is the FCC ruling that says that it can't be said on TV.

Name one other word, in the English language or any other, that started out with a negative meaning and was changed to mean something positive. Name one. Black people used the word after slavery to refer to each other because that is all they knew to refer to themselves as. At no point in history did the meaning of the word change. The only thing that has changed is that you can now turn on the radio and here the word. White record execs are the masterminds behind the mainstreaming of the word, not some underground movement by Black people to change the connotation of the word. Do not fool yourself into thinking that we as a people made some sort on conscious decision to take the negativity out of the word. The word is now and will always be – NEGATIVE. I missed that meeting when we as a people decided to turn the word into a positive word with lots of love behind it. Who was in attendance at that meeting? Jay-Z, Ludacris , oh no, I guess it was Diddy and Snoop? I guess Dr. King wasn‘t at the meeting. Certainly, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, all the slain civil rights leaders of our history weren‘t there either.

I want to vote again. THE WORD NIGGER IS A VILE AND DISGUSTING WORD. Just because we use it commonly, does not mean that it is now positive. We need not even go back to slavery to find the abhorrent use of the word. My mother was imprisoned for demonstrating in the sixties. She was spit upon until her dress was ripping with spit. Read that again, dripping with spit. She risked her life so that we would not be called NIGGER and now it is on every song on the radio. My grandfather was a civil rights leader, he affected the lives of thousands. I have never heard him, to this very day, use the word when referring to another black person. NEVER! But I guess because Kanye does, than it is a term of affection. Right!

I find it very hard to believe that as creative as we are, that we can't find one other word to use that means brother. We have to defend the word that our ancestors were called when they hung from trees, their flesh ripped from their bodies with the whip.