The Epithet by Prince A. Cuba

Nicholas Minucci is a white boy charged with a “Hate Crime.” He was accused of beating a Black man with a baseball bat in the summer of 2005, in Howard Beach, N.Y. The hate crime count is based on Minucci’s calling his victim “nigger” while he was beating him with the bat. Minucci’s defense was that in his mind, from “growing up around hip-hop culture and rap music,” that the “epithet” was “a benign form of address.” When told that the term is derogatory, a nigger will deny that. When pressed for an historical precedent, he will reject history, saying, “it is a generational difference,” as if the current generation is some how an historical anomaly, disjointed, unrelated, and some how wholly unconnected to the previous generations (read: “ancestors”). Those with no sense of history think their own generation is some how unique and wiser than those who came before. But what is a “nigger” ? “Niggers” have been around since the beginning of time, (probably before that, because they’re never on time), and can be found on every continent, country, nation, or tribe. They are represented in every movement and organization. They are represented in the Old Testament by Joseph's brothers who sold him into slavery to strangers. They are people who will sell-out their own for glass beads (bling-bling) or for the manufactured products which they do not develop the technology to produce for themselves. They refuse to “do for self and kind” or learn how. Other epithets for these people are: traitor, snitch, collaborator, sell-out, pimp. They have no nationality, cause, or true religion. They have no honor or loyalty, and while claiming to be “true to the game,” that “game” has no rules set in stone, no legislated statutes printed on paper, no judicial interpretation, no enforcement apparatus in place. They have no rules but fear, and are chiefly motivated and controlled almost solely by fear and short-term immediate self-interest or pleasure. They can be any color but they are most often confused by the ignorant with Africans who, the originator and the author of the epithet (white people), tagged with the name in reference to a river (Niger) in West Africa. The word “niger” means “black” in the  Latin language, and was neither derogatory nor of a negative connotation. Africans abducted from the Niger region became slaves in the English-speaking Americas. Because enslaved Africans were kept ignorant, illiterate, denied legal marriage contracts, responsibility for their offspring, social equality, or nutritious diets necessary for elevated and sustained mental development, these characteristics, while forced on them, were associated with the “nigger” status. People who were forcibly kept deaf, dumb, and blind to themselves and their origins, were called “niggers” by the ones oppressing them. The word niger (pronounced in the Latin “nee-gar”), in itself, was not a negative term; it was in the passage of time and within it’s social development that the connotation became negative. Connotation (suggested meaning in addition to literal meaning), is important as it gives a fuller understanding of the word. The word “slave,” for example, is defined as a person wholly under the control of an outside agency. The word did not always have its current connotation or meaning. The word in the English was borrowed from the Latin, itself derived from the Roman Empire and refers to Slavic (Slavs) people captured as prisoners of war forced into servitude (“slavery”). “Slav” in its original meaning was “noble person,” but in the passage of time, the Slavs in forced servitude evolved into the English “slave,” and the meaning and connotation of Slav changed from “noble person” to one wholly under the control of an other. We know the ancient meaning of the words, but what of their current meanings and connotations? Was Minucci, while hitting the brother in the head with the bat using “a benign form of address”? You may hear “that’s my nigger,” as a form of endearment, or hear poorly-stated arguments that there is a distinction between “nigger” or “niggah,” but the term, however pronounced, is too often used in the negative, in anger, and in insult to signify anything positive. The rationalizations offered for its continued use are significant when analyzed as thinly-disguised symptoms of self-hatred. It is the self-described group of “niggers” who constantly use the term and its auxiliary word “bitch,” that defend the self-use of the same, claiming neither is derogatory. They, as does Mr. Minucci, point to its use by entertainers, as authoritative! Are we missing something in our analysis? Do white folks cite Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or Eminem as authorities for calling themselves something negative? Does any rational person utilize entertainers as a justification for their negative social practices? The generational argument proposed, is that because Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King didn’t use the term except as a derogatory one, they're out of date, or what they were all about or taught, is not relevant to today’s youth. Alex Haley, in his biography of Malcolm X, said that the only time he saw Malcolm close to tears was when he used that epithet, A single time, when he said: “We had the best organization the black man’s ever had ¾ niggers ruined it!” (pp. 411). Do these fools who call us this think them-selves wiser than those who came before? Not one of the thousands of people who call themselves “niggers” has been responsible for the upliftment or positive growth and development of anything but the system of slavery and exploitation built on the foundation of inequality and slavery, expressed as white supremacy. Not one “nigger” has written a book, devised a plan, or formed an organization to bring in effect, freedom, justice or equality. Huey P. Newton, George Jackson, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur didn’t tell you that you were “niggers.” Who taught you that you were ignorant, inferior, incapable of education or social advancement, or of producing advanced technology for yourself? Who called you “nigger” so much you became brainwashed into thinking it was your name? When a people internalize a negative definition of themselves, originated by a proven enemy and oppressor, they will manifest the symptoms of self-hatred through self-destructive behavior. Who has the highest death rate from self-induced causes? Lung cancer; cirrhosis of the liver; diabetes; obesity; high-blood pressure; H.I.V,A.I.D.S; colon and prostate cancer; heart disease? The chains of psychological slavery must be broken, and self-knowledge, translated into self-love is required before unity can be achieved. Folks talk about the “devil” within, and the Moorish Science Temple has a doctrine regarding the “lower self.” One might consider killing this epithet, because its use has not cheapened the word; just the opposite. Why else would some devil, accused of a hate crime in the beating of a Black man with a baseball bat,(he beat him into a coma),find some Black (mentally dead) stooges, to testify on his behalf, that the word “nigger” was not derogatory? When the devil was beating the brother in the head, was it a term of endearment?