Dear White People...

So, it's been all over twitter recently but it's not a new topic; saying the n**** in songs.

So, one of my favourite artists is J. Cole and for those of you that don't him he's a black rapper who uses the N-word a lot in his songs. A couple of weeks ago I went to a J. Cole concert and his fans were from all the different demographics. I was standing next to a particular white guy who felt the need to emphasise every single N-word that J. Cole said in his songs and this has happened to me before at a Drake concert. First issue was he was saying it, second issue was I didn't do anything to stop him because to be honest I was shocked.

I feel like when it comes to racial abuse I've been lucky that it hasn't been fully in my face. Yes, I've had people saying things like "wog", "go back to your country" etc. but that was from afar and easy to ignore. When it comes to music I've just been around intelligent people who know to skip the word. So, when I was now faced with an opportunity to educate someone and face it head on I didn't. To be fair to me it was a concert so it was obviously very loud and hot and not the best time to start a lesson on why he shouldn't say the N-word but still. The other day a reality TV star uploaded an Instagram live in which he sung the N-word as part of the lyrics to a song and the unsurprisingly most of internet responded negatively. Some went as far as to brand him a racist other called him ignorant but he's not the first and he won't be the last. He issued an a lacklustre apology and everyone seemed to move on. Unfortuneately he’s not he first and he won’t be the last “celebrity" to do this. However, he had people defending him saying that artists shouldn't use the word or that people were being too sensitive and it wasn't that serious. Personally, the issue lies more in the fact that he didn't know it was inappropriate until the uproar from the internet.

Ok, I've tried being politically correct but forgot that let's get real.

Ok, cool.

For me, I don't understand why nigga needs to be used in songs but I understand why it is. Music is a form of expression and reflect an artist's story and experiences. Some artists say they use the word to reclaim it from its racist origins of being used to dehumanise black people, others say it's simply part of their vocabulary. Regardless it has been used since the beginning of rap, grime and other "urban" music and that's unlikely to change. But that's a different issue. To be frank the need and sometimes sheer desperation with which white people feel the need to say the word is the real issue and it baffles me. Can't you just enjoy the song without the words? And it's not only white people, Asians also love saying it with their chest. This comes back to my issue with the term people of colour and why I think it's harmful. 

To explain it to my white counterparts, some people only see me as my race. As in that's it. Whereas your race is just a part of you and not just your whole identity. Others, have to get over the fact that I'm black and then find out who I am. For example, why do you sometimes feel the need to quote Stormzy lyrics and use slang whenever you're around me? When you use words that youve looked up in urban dictionary as a way to impress me it’s insulting. Because you want to show me that you're down with the black people, that we have something in common, because to you I'm just black. I'm more than my race. 

So, going back to J. Cole he's got a song called 'Neighbours'. In the song, he talks about how he made a lot of money and moved to a nice area in his home town, the area being predominantly white saw him and his friends in and out of his house assumed they were drug dealers and called the police. After hearing the house was full of black people the police stormed in with riot gear and large guns even though there was no evidence of illegal activity other than black people being present. He talks about how his white neighbours were only used to seeing black people on the TV with mugshots and assumed he was the same. That's the black reality. Being black before anything else.

As an explanation to why many white people don't understand why they can't say nigga under any circumstance a girl on Twitter but it down to white supremacy. That it's ingrained into the minds of white people that they're entitled to the world and therefore they feel offended that they don't have access to something. To be honest I'm not sure if that's the reason, but its definitely an issue that needs to be seriously addressed.

So…

Dear White People,

Stop singing/saying/shouting/whispering nigga.

Just stop.