Word: niggah
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Such changes in usage have given rise to bizarre incidents, such as one involving the 12-year-old son of one of my closest friends, who asked white sixth-graders at his private school who call one another "my niggah" if they realized that the word was offensive. They would call only other white people that, one of the kids assured him, never a black. They weren't trying to racially insult anyone, just trying to prove that they were down with hip-hop culture...
Within the circle of the black community, then, the word inherently changes meaning. It is a word which actually puts everyone on a level playing field: a "niggah" becomes a man, or a person, just like any other. In fact, the expression of exasperation, "Niggah, please," can be translated as, "Man, please." The word can even have positive connotations, reference to friends as, "my niggaz," for example, is often reserved for those whom you are closest to, the people who are loyal to you and to whom you are loyal in return...
...Califano hears and sees the larger purpose struggling within that tortured man. Through the civil rights campaign and the legislative battles on health, education and housing there is a vision held high by Johnson, found even in his raw Pedernales patois. "Niggah, niggah, niggah," Johnson shouted at Califano after a meeting with Southern and Border state Governors in 1966. "If I don't achieve anything else while I am President, I intend to wipe that word out of the English language...
Later, in the tenth, Oriole left-fielder Don Baylor camped under a pop-up, and someone behind me hollered, "Drop it, niggah." It reminded me of another Red Sox-Orioles match-up last September when the Orioles led off a fruitful first inning with Bumbry, Coggins, Tommy Davis, Baylor, Paul Blair and Earl Williams--all of them black. The man in front of me sullenly counted off the players out loud. When Williams came to the dish he pronounced to his son in a pained prophetic tone, "Well, that's six of' em." The kid asked...
...father rescued from a massacre of Kiowas. The hero asks his mother (Gish) if the tale is true. He is shattered when she says it is. Nevertheless, even though he hates Indians as only a man can whose father has been killed by them, he defends the little "red Niggah" against the Kiowas, who fight to get her back; against the other ranchmen, who want to throw her as a sop to the raiding tribesmen; against his own brother (Murphy), whose love for his adopted sister is dissolved in hatred of her race; and even against herself, when she tries...