H. Lewis Smith, Founder/CEO of The United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc. (a non-profit organization raising funds for our educational campaign against self-destruction and debasement in various communities throughout the United States), contacted me in regards to Sharla's recent column in The Loyolan surrounding our n-word debate at LMU. He wanted me to run his article about the subject, before I informed him that we only run student pieces.
You can read his article The Pulse Beat of Buffoonery, here.
My response to Lewis went as follows:
From the Lewis piece titled The Pulse Beat of Buffoonery "The n-word is a mirror that reflects the transgressions of a once oppressive and malevolent society; a word that brought about death and destruction for a race of people's ancestors should not be spoken."
One's stance on the debate about the n-word remains to be dependent on exactly the bolded word above. For people who advocate for the death of the world (the end of use and discussion about it), they believe racism, oppression and malevolence are part of America's past. For people who believe these characteristics remain the make-up of contemporary American society, the debate about the word remains extremely important.
Nas' presence on the red-carpet to promote his new album "Nigger," was the tip of an ice berg-size investigation that he plans to conduct over the course of a Hip-Hop album, later this year.
Isolating this incident is worse that judging a book by its cover, its avoiding to read anything else about it.
Consequently, those who still think race is still a source of oppression must never close the book on the n-word.
peep the Nas-red carpet video here:
What do you think?
You can read his article The Pulse Beat of Buffoonery, here.
My response to Lewis went as follows:
From the Lewis piece titled The Pulse Beat of Buffoonery "The n-word is a mirror that reflects the transgressions of a once oppressive and malevolent society; a word that brought about death and destruction for a race of people's ancestors should not be spoken."
One's stance on the debate about the n-word remains to be dependent on exactly the bolded word above. For people who advocate for the death of the world (the end of use and discussion about it), they believe racism, oppression and malevolence are part of America's past. For people who believe these characteristics remain the make-up of contemporary American society, the debate about the word remains extremely important.
Nas' presence on the red-carpet to promote his new album "Nigger," was the tip of an ice berg-size investigation that he plans to conduct over the course of a Hip-Hop album, later this year.
Isolating this incident is worse that judging a book by its cover, its avoiding to read anything else about it.
Consequently, those who still think race is still a source of oppression must never close the book on the n-word.
peep the Nas-red carpet video here:
What do you think?
1 comment:
There seems to be some misunderstanding as to what bury the n-word movement is truly all about. This isn't about closing the book on the n-word or an attempt to censor debates and/or discussions about the word. The word n**ger is part of American history and it is as much open to discussion as the Civil War, Boston Tea Party, slavery, etc. It is totally unrealistic to expect or believe that this word can just simply disappear.
No, the intent, is to eradicate it from the vocabulary of all African Americans insofar as using the word as a form of greeting and/or defining one's self. There is absolulely nothing admirable, honorable nor respectable in the African American's use of this word and needs to cease.
It is imperative that the African American take the initiative and responsibility of restoring self-respect, pride, dignity and honor back into the community by refraining from defining themself with such a vile and heinous word as the n-word. And for anyone to support the African American's use of this word in the manner that they so use it, obviously do not have the best interest of the African American commmunity at heart.
http://www.theunitedvoices.com
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