I have not had to deal with this (thankfully) but for many milenneals (sp) the music culture of today uses the N word, at least that is what I have been led to believe as I don’t listen to that stuff. But I could see a white kid brought up listening to that (my daughter listens to some of it but only in her car thankfully) thinking using the word is okay. He/she shouldn’t of course, based on the baggage that comes with it but when they misunderstand that I guess you are best sitting down with them ti explain it. To explain why they can’t use it but that other guy can.
I have listened to Stephen A Smith try to explain Hip Hop lyrics today in regards to a white QB prospect using the N word.
I know. I try to listen to him but man he is just a joke sometimes. But he just happened to be talking about the Wyoming QB’s tweets as I was typing that post.
Well I try not to auto assign a racist label on someone who uses that lingo… but here’s the big different between your son and you. Your son sounds like he was willing to listen and change his behavior. Maybe he doesn’t know much about origins of words but if he’s playing a game, he can use Google like everyone else. It’s willing ignorance, it’s not like the information isn’t there, and he’s a kid.
These eSport guys, don’t listen, they’ve been talked to more than once and there is no cultural misunderstanding when it comes to labeling a name black and therefore basically saying eeew, there is no cultural ignorance that should allowed for that. There is simply no excuse for it.
To take the most charitable possible interpretation of Kanye’s comments (by the way, it was 250 years from the first slaves in the Colonies until emancipation, not 400), he could be referring to the phenomenon of slave revolts, which obviously happen from time to time and occasionally even succeed. The U.S.'s biggest such revolt was I think Nat Turner, which did not have anywhere near the effect of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s rebellion in Haiti. But the implication that given enough time any group of enslaved people should simply revolt is, erm, historically naive at best. The U.S. was not Haiti, and historically there have been slaves for much longer stretches of time than 250 years (~1000 years in Rome, for example). The power differential between the enslaved and their owners is so enormous that cases like L’Ouverture (or even Spartacus, whose huge uprising was ultimately crushed) should probably be viewed much more as the exception than the rule.
I think Kanye’s comments about “prison” are meant to imply that people shackle their own minds by dwelling on negativity, and thus are unable to rise above their problems and be successful in life. Or something. He switches topics pretty quickly.
Anyway, this sounds like a lot of “self help” books and other scams that “successful”/rich people use to trick the public into handing over their money.
