The N-Word Remixed at Weequahic High School

A gorgeous Friday afternoon in February I hop on my bicycle and head to the N-Word Remixed at Weequahic High School, Newark. The focus of the panel is to discuss and debate with community activists, journalists, history scholars, teachers, and students the reasons why some people in the Hip Hop community and in America argue that the n-word is a term of endearment; despite the historical fact that this word was born out of racism, slavery, and the oppression of African Americans.

Adhering to the clock of cp-time, I left the house round when the debate was starting. I was late but got to catch the Q&A with the audience, which in Newark is often the best part. To me, later-comer-as-I-was, it seemed that those in favor of using Nigga won the debate. It seems to me that the NAACP did indeed succeed in burying the N-word, nigger, in the funeral they held for the word several years back now. From the ashes, a new word has risen, a word with the power of uplift, this is as my brothers and sisters eloquently debated in their high school, that word is nigga, with an "a." As one sister broke it down for us, Nigga, as negra, as black, as beautiful. She calls her friends niggas because we are black, and we are beautiful. As a young brother broke it down for us adults, why are we so worried about the n-word, when there are so many negative words that we are using, why aren't holding debates about bitches, and fuck, and hos?

There did not seem to be disagreement on the importance of understanding the historical lessons of the word nigger. We need to know that history. We need to still be thinking about the legacy of slavery as a lived-experience in our present. As one brother said, it is no longer physical slavery, it is now mental slavery.

What do you think, when you call your brothers and sisters nigga, in what ways is that part of our mental slavery? in what ways is it an act of resistance? in what ways is it an act of love?

The panel for the N-Word Remixed program consisted of Dr. Akil Kalfani, Chairperson of Essex County College’s Africana Institute; Larry Hamm, State Chairman of the Peoples Organization for Progress; Mark Diionno, weekly columnist for the New Jersey Star ledger newspaper; Hakim Green, Hip Hop Artist; and student leaders of Weequahic High School. History teacher Bashir Akinyele moderated the event.