Nigga
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Nigga is a term used in African-American Vernacular English that began as an eye dialect form of the word nigger (which is derived from the Spanish word negro, meaning black, which in turn comes from Latin niger.)
[edit] Use in language
As of 2006, the word nigga is used, without intentional prejudice, among all ethnicities in the United States, including African-Americans, Latino Americans, Asian-Americans, and Caucasian Americans. [1] [2] [3] In practice, its use and meaning, when used in reference to another individual, is heavily dependent on context.
Like the term nigger, many people continue to see the word nigga as pejorative and its use both in and outside African-American communities remains highly controversial [4] The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights group, condemns use of both nigga or nigger [3] and bought the rights to the website nigger.com to prevent online exploitation of the term. [1]
Some African-Americans express considerable offense when referred to as a nigga by white people, but not if they are called the same by other African-Americans, or by some other minority. [3] In this case, the term may be seen as a symbol of fraternity [5], similar to the usage of the words dude, bro and queer, and its use outside a defined social group an unwelcome cultural appropriation. Critics have derided this as a double standard. [1]
[edit] Cultural influence
The use of the term may be due to the overwhelming popularity of hip hop music in modern American culture.[6] Such music often features songs that feature the word nigga prominently. Examples include: Notorious B.I.G.'s song, The Realest Niggaz, The Geto Boys' Real Nigga Shit, Ice Cube's The Wrong Nigga To Fuck With, Snoop Doggy Dogg's For All My Niggaz And Bitches, Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz and Ice Cube's Real Nigga Role Call, Onyx's Bitchasniguz, Tupac Shakur's Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard's album Nigga Please. The term "nigga, please", first used in the 1970s by comics such as Paul Mooney as "a funny punctuation in jokes about Blacks," [7] is now heard routinely in comedy routines by African Americans.
Shakur defined the term NIGGA as an acronym: "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished" in the lyrics to his song Words of Wisdom, on his 1991 album 2Pacalypse Now. In 1995, two Houston, Texas men filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the words "Naturally Intelligent God Gifted Africans", and its acronym. The application was rejected, as were numerous subsequent applications for variations of the word nigga. Most recently, comedian Marlon Wayans twice failed in an attempt to trademark a brand name called Nigga, "featuring clothing, books, music and general merchandise". [6]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Kevin Aldridge, Richelle Thompson and Earnest Winston. The evolving N-word] The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 5, 2001.
- ^ Kendra Pierre. 'Nigger,' 'Nigga' or Neither?, Meridia, May 1, 2006.
- ^ a b c J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. New Word Order, Metro, April 9, 1998.
- ^ Alex Alonso. Won’t You Please Be My Nigga: Double Standards with a Taboo Word, Streetgangs.com, May 30, 2003.
- ^ Kevin Aldridge. Slurs often adopted by those they insult, The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 5, 2001.
- ^ a b Darryl Fears. Patent offense: Wayans’s hip-hop line, The Washington Post, March 15, 2006.
- ^ Darryl Fears. Jesse Jackson, Paul Mooney Call for End of N-Word, BET.com, November 27, 2006.
