The word “Niger should not be used by anyone regardless of the circumstances. Niger comes from the Latin word Niger meaning black. Niger was used derogatory term used to refer to black slaves during colonial times. It represents generations of endured racism and oppression. The word was used to make a mockery of black people. “Whether [Niger is] used as a noun, verb, or adjective, it strengthened the stereotype of the lazy, stupid, dirty, worthless nobody,” (Niger, a brief history). The use of the word “Niger” strips away the individuality of a person.
Niger is evident in IP hop music, the civil rights movement, pop culture, and is now used as a term of endearment. The genre of hip hop music Inspires use of the generalizing term “Niger”. HIP hop music allows the term “Niger” to be a normal thing to say. When Niger is used in a song it gives people of every race an excuse to use it. Certain words from song only can end up in a person’s vocabulary. In the song “Real Enigma Roll Call” by Oil Jon and The East Side Boozy, the variation of the word “Niger” is used over 95 times. After hearing Niger over 95 times In one song, the word Is going to stick.
Rappers should take responsibility for music they put out In the music Industry. Rappers could be more positive and help a lot more people out. An opposing argument is that Hip hop started in the late sass’s, and it was a form of expression for blacks and it empowered them. Hip hop was all about individuality among blacks. Deceased rapper Outpace Shaker influenced many people going through struggles when he spoke about being grateful for what one has In his song “Keep Hay Head up”: “Ahoy, I remember Marvin Gage, used to sing TA me He had me feeling like black was that thing to be
And suddenly that ghetto didn’t seem so tough And though we had it rough, we always had enough” The problem with this argument Is that hip hop music Isn’t Like that anymore, nowadays hip hop puts more emphasis on partying, drugs, and sex. Hip hop music encourages the use of the word “Niger. The people of the Civil Rights Movement fought very hard against the generic term “Niger”. Dry. Martin Luther King Jar. Was all about fighting love with hate. He died fighting for the equality of his kind, and yet a few decades later those same people are using a malicious racial slur among themselves.
This situation should not be what he died fighting for. Martin Luther King wrote in his Letter From Birmingham Jail “When your first name becomes ‘Niger,’ your middle name becomes ‘boy. ” This quote shows what King thought about the use of Niger, shows how the term really generalizes people. His argument here is that if you call someone a Niger he might as well have no name. The word “rugged” has become a term of endearment, and people use It from racists by changing it from Niger to enigma. Enigma is supposed to mean friend. The word was supposedly reinvented and meant something entirely different.
People ere Just conforming with each other and lost their way when they came up with this. Then blacks took pride in being “insignias”, a variation of a word they Just spent generations fighting. “Niger” oppressed black people for hundreds of years, people died fighting against that slur, Just because an ‘A’ was added at the end, and all of a sudden it’s k. The word “Niger” takes away the individuality of a person. Niger was used as a mockery of black people. During the Civil Rights Movement the word was fought against. Hip hop music started off with great messages, but now songs use the word “Niger” excessively.