Re: Self-Use of Ethnic Insults (was: Re: Ebonic Christmas )

I predict that within 30 years, due to the taboo on its use as a
racial stereotype and the mainstreaming of rap music, "nigga" will
lose its racial meaning and become a term for "friend" or "comrade."

That's not meant to say anything one way or the other about the
"Ebonic Xmass" discussion.  It's just something I'd been thinking
about the other day, and seemed vaguely conlang related.

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                       edheil@postmark.net
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Steg Belsky wrote:

> I'd only heard the word "nigga" in a Chris Rock comedy show on TV, until
> i went up to college and heard my roommate's large collection of
> (non-radio-censored) rap music.  What i found amazing is that my
> suitemates and their friends called eachother "nigga" constantly - and
> they're not even African, they're *Asian*!
>
> The closest Jews come to anything similar to the gansta-rap use of
> "nigga" is using the word "jew" instead of the phrase "jewish person".
> For some reason it sounds rougher, like a Nazi would probably yell "hey,
> jew!" and not "hey, jewish person!" when chasing you down the street or
> something.  For some reason it sounds derogatory.  Some of my friends
> joked around about calling eachother "kike" but decided that it didn't
> work very well.  Although, when my brother told a friend of ours (also
> jewish) that he wants to move to Alaska, our friend was like "hey, you
> can be the state kike!" jokingly, but that's about it.
>
>
> -Stephen (Steg)
>  "And for slanderers let there be no hope..."