Nigga What?

We embrace calling ourselves niggers, like that’s empowering, when in actuality, it’s disrespectful to our ancestors and just plain ignorant.  To believe yourself to be a nigger, to behave like you are an ignorant sub human (the true implied meaning of the word) has no benefit or value.  Defending the use of the word, trying to rationalize that it has been changed into something positive is insanity.  Nine times out of ten, the usage of the word is meant to be disparaging and degrading, EXACTLY the way white people intended it to be used, and on the tenth time, it’s an empty a sign of self-hatred masquerading itself as a term of endearment. 

White people expect us to behave like niggers, so calling ourselves that, ESPECIALLY in front of them, does nothing but reinforce to them that we are inferior.  To carry yourself like royalty, to walk with dignity, to boldly declare that you are not only equal to but better than white people with your speech, your actions, and your intellect is FAR more threatening to white people than calling yourself a nigga.  Want proof?  Write a blog calling yourself a nigga and talking about cars, drugs, guns, rap, sex, sports, and how much you love living in the ghetto.  You won’t get a response from white people.  Well that’s not entirely true.  You might get a response or two asking you to fulfill their sexual fantasies.  Then, write a blog, grammatically correct and spell checked, that talks about the greatness of black people, our strength, and our ability to excel despite racism, oppression, and bigotry.  Write about how our true history of greatness has been distorted with white lies and deception.  Discuss, academically articulated with footnoted and documented proof, advanced African civilizations and how white people re-wrote history to make themselves appear superior.  White people will crawl out of the woodworks to tell you that Black people are ignorant and that you are nothing but a dumb nigger. 

You have to ask yourself, what benefit do you get from calling yourself a nigga?  If calling yourself that makes you feel connected to other black people, consider yourself a slave on the plantation.  If you do nothing else this year, decide to stop using the N word to describe yourself, to describe other black people you want to look down on, or as some sort of synonym supposedly meaning Black person.  It’s negative, unenlightened, and stupid. 

Acting Black

I hear people complain, not my personal circle of friends but others on the net, that they are looked down upon by their friends for speaking well, for “acting white”.  That’s not necessarily true either.  I’ve had friends make those sorts of comments and criticisms and then I remind them that their particular circle of friends are all educated and articulate.  They don't really get that comment directed at them, they only pretend that they do so they can be included in the number of outraged and offended who have nothing better to do on the internet but complain about "those Black people."   It seems true however, that a great many people in our community still feel that to be educated is to be a sellout, is to “act white”. 

I have had several personal experiences where when I contradict someone’s misguided and tragically flawed logic or opinion, they tell me that going to college and getting a higher education doesn’t make me smarter than them.  I understand that as a defense mechanism, an attempt to make themselves feel validated and to lesson my arguments by believing that years of study, research, and reading have no impact on one’s body of knowledge.  It is, however, nothing more than a defense mechanism with not one iota of validity. Yes, going to college, studying, makes me more informed.  You might have common sense and you might be street smart but thinking you know about subjects that you haven't studied, getting your "knowledge" about subjects from listening to Michael Baisden, no, that does not mean you are more informed than I am. 

I’m also the beneficiary of numerous notes, emails and communiqués from individuals in the “conscious community”, individuals who are extremely informed and well read, that are phonetically misspelled, grammatically incorrect, and incoherent.  On the rare occasion that I respond to those sorts of messages, informing the sender that I’m discouraged by their lack of basic English skills, I’m usually assaulted with the concept that achieving the white man’s education, knowing how to articulate oneself well in standard English, is to be unable to grasp my true African heritage.  It always seems that the party line is that TRUE Africans can only communicate in ebonics or some variation thereof.   I shouldn’t need a key and a translation guide have to decipher an email about the plight of my people. 

All three mindsets are dumb. 

To me, acting like you are white would be to be ignorant of other people’s history and culture.  Acting white would be diminishing other people’s pain, using your skin color for unearned privileges, trying to oppress people in order to make yourself feel superior.  Being barely literate and uneducated doesn’t make you more Black, it doesn’t make your Black experience more authentic.  The more we as a people ascribe to the notion that acting white is to be informed, intelligent, and articulate, the more we assert that being “real” or being Black is to shun education, the more we are playing into the hands of EXACTLY what white people expect us and want us to be . . . dumb niggers.  Educating oneself in an institution of higher learning does in fact make you smarter than stopping your education at the 12^th grade.  How much smarter is up to the individual but to assert anything different is absurd.  Mastering the English language doesn’t mean you can’t fight for the revolution, it simply means you can address multitudes of people in a way that everyone can understand. 

To act Black is to behave in a manner where we excel despite the circumstances.  Acting Black is to make a way out of no way.  White people can excel in life because they have inheritances, nepotism, institutionalized racism that allows them to get a foot in the door for no other reason, with no qualification other than their skin color.  Acting Black is excelling despite the fact that we have to work twice as hard to get half as far.  Acting Black is carrying yourself with dignity and grace when white people try to belittle or demean your by making racist comments and then excusing it by saying, “I’m just joking.”  Our Blackness is our strength, our ability to survive, adapt, and shine.  Shine on Black man and Black woman, shine on. 

I am Black

What do you see when you see me?  Do you see responsibility and dignity encoded in my DNA?  Do you see generations of survival and struggle in my skin?  Open your eyes, your mind, your heart and see that I am Black.  I’m a black man with the burdens, trials, and tribulations that come along with that honor.  Don’t look at my color to see my blackness, that the sun has graced me with its kisses.  See my blackness and my manhood as intricately intertwined and divinely gifted, see my blackness as my nature and my demeanor, not the way society has narrowly defined me.  

The realization of my true place as a black man did not come until I let go of my insecurities and fears, my false beliefs that kept me separated from my other half.  My soul was incomplete without the presence of you, my queen.  You waited patiently for me to grow and mature, you waited for me to wear the crown that had my name inscribed on it so that we could reign together.  Now that I have found you, I will not forsake your love.  My thoughts are filled with ways I can bring a smile to your lips, those sweet and seductive lips that make my knees weak and my palms sweaty when you gently touch my cheek . . . my brow.  I am filled with the need to give you pleasure like you’ve never known before, to bring you satisfaction until you pass out from sensory overload.  Laying your head on my chest, finding that spot that belongs only to you fills me with a profound joy like I’ve never known before.  With my arms wrapped tightly around your exquisite brown curves, I know my challenge is to show you my emotional wounds and let you heal them with your compassion and your love.  I’m humbled by the ways I’ve grown with you and my newfound ability to see you as a complete human being, not just an object for me to acquire.  You are the reason for my being and I’m made whole in your arms.  

Copyright 2006 Scottie Lowe  All rights reserved. 

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