I THOUGHT YOU WERE A FRIEND....
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Part One....
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It has been a good 30 years or so that something like this has happened to me. I had that “nigger wake up” call. I like it when Paul Mooney talks about this subject because all Black people have had these moments. I’m sure other cultures/races have a name for their “moments” also. I mean… It’s not like I forgot about ‘em or something. I treat people like they treat me and we’ll be okay, most of the time. Most of the time that is. I have a reason to give people the benefit of the doubt, if they’re cool with me. I do. There are good people out here. Real people God loving people. And God put that in me and history has taught me to be that way because all-human beings should be handled with care. ....
I say that because I’m one of them. I’m sensitive and I’m not afraid of it. My skin is thick to a degree but as I get wiser, I’m finding out I have buttons that shouldn’t be pushed. Being called a nigger by a White person is one of those buttons. It’s like being cut. It heals but the scar tissue is always as a reminder. That sound stays in your ears. It’s not a good thing at all. I don’t want to hear the shit. The word should not be used by White people period.....
I should have known better than to put trust in a person who is from a place that has a history of treating people unlike themselves like shit, with Black people being one step above the Indigenous. ....
I have lived in that part of the country and I’ve seen and felt it first hand. I’ve seen the looks of fear for no reason; I’ve heard “the word” shouted from a moving vehicle (which always cracks me up because it shows such courage), I mean I’ve been there done that, the offenses by a White man for a reason no other than the color of my skin, no more no less, clean and simple. ....
I refuse to say that ALL White men are fucked up because I’ve met just as many fucked up Black men over the same period. I have met some really good White people also, some that I can hold my hand over my heart and trust with my life. But some Blacks and Whites have issues that are going to get us all fucked up. Muthafuckas can’t see eye to eye on shit. And that stupid philosophy reigns. ....
I want to share my ‘nigger wake-up’ moment because I can. You don’t have to read it. You can stop now because the truth is about to come forward. If you can’t handle what I’m about to spit, you should quit.....
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Part Two....
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Not long ago, about a year now, I had my moment, the “NWUC” in the parking lot of a club I had just performed. After loading our equipment, the fellas are hanging out in the parking lot. We’re just talking and having a good time. We are a pretty mixed group, Blacks, Whites and Asians mostly. ....
I had this White guy with me. I say “friend” with quotations because I feel it’s appropriate. This person, this human being that imitates a man has no class. (I know, I know… I’ll get to why I’m with him) He wants to be a comedian, he’s the life of the party in a room full of people, he’s always the loudest mouth in the house. We had some good times for a minute. He had some good moments where he was a funny muthafucka. Good timing. ....
But he was a drunk. He already had this arrogant attitude about him. For instance, Bill Cosby once mentioned that a person told him that cocaine enhances your personality. Well Bill’s answer was, suppose if you’re an asshole. That is this person to the max. ....
Back at the parking lot, we’re laughing and talking shit back and forth and all of a sudden, this White dude comes out with, “Awe nigge…” And stopped.....
Okay! I’m in fuckin’ shock here. What do I do? My insides are going crazy. Do I knock this drunken muthafucka out? …Right here right now? …Do I tell the fellas what this fool just said because they didn’t hear it; Thank God …I know that for a fact. ....
All I could do was look at this drunk, and not even embarrassed muthafucka in the face and say, “Go ahead and finish. You made it THAT far.” Is all I could come up with, I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe any of this shit. I stood there and took like a man, for one, instead of knockin’ that muthafucka out like Black man. Two, for being so goddam cool with everybody. Some people, they just don’t have it.....
He was trying to apologize but I told him to leave it alone. Since he had to ride about 30 miles with me. Up until then he was good riding company. I wish I could leave his ass. But this muthafucka needed to hear me out. No way I’m letting a, “I’m sorry man” get his ass outta this one. ....
I explained it to him as best I could on how I felt about that word and the horror that is associated with it. Especially coming from a White man to a Black man, it just doesn’t flow peacefully… I don’t care what people say. His generation, most of them don’t give a fuck about that. This word is just too fucking cool to pass up or something. For some White people who want to be accepted as cool, is it really worth the possible ass kicking to say it the first time? If that’s the case, that’s a goddam shame. I did forgive him. I did. I gave the muthafucka a break, which I should. I know it was the alcohol talking but alcohol brings out the truth when taken at the right quantity. I really have no regrets of not doing something to him at the time because I felt he did learn something, about me but also about the use of that word in the wrong crowd, period. Luckily he was in the right group of people. He lucked out. He really did. If I had ratted him out to those brothers, it was a good chance “Mr.-I-like-to-say-nigga’s” dental insurance would have been in full effect. Anyway, karma has a way of balancing things out. I believe that. ....
Martin Luther King would have been proud of me. Shit, I’m proud of me J …but did this dude get the message, did the message get through... No. It didn’t. All that fuckin’ shit I said in the car home meant nothing, NO THIHG at all. ....
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Part Three....
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A few months later, I’m in a play at a theatre in Hollywood and some people from my job were going to come and we are going to go out to club after the play, do some drinking. Well, you-know-who is coming. I get a weird feeling about him and this particular place. It has all the makings of him getting drunk and who knows what the fuck can happen with drunks. ....
I told him, if he decides to hang afterwards, I hope he doesn’t get drunk and start spitting nigger. His response was, “I guess I shouldn’t go then.” ....
Now what the fuck do I say to that? …I tell him, “Good, don’t come man.” And just like that… no more breaks for this dangerous muthafucka. ....
I have had nothing to say or do with this no-good-rotten-rat-bastard-son-of-a-bitch since. Fuck him and everything he stands for. I thought he was a friend. I guess as long as I’m, his nigger, we’re cool. To tell me the chances of him getting drunk and calling me or someone else a nigger are high? C’mon now. I’m not that high. I can’t disrespect all those who have died at the sound of that word being the last word they heard before being murdered by a White man. ....
There are people in the middle of this, who are totally puzzled. They seem to can’t over stand why I don’t just let it go. Well, what I’m hearing is, accept your place nigger and be happy to be in it. They ask me why I’m being distant now? I see these same people chumming it up with this dude and I don’t know what to think. What should I trust? I’m going to trust history. The history that I know, that led me to say, “I thought you were my friend.” I can forgive but I’m not going to forget. Forget? I can’t do that. ....
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Part 4....
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We had some good times. Like I said the dude could be a funny man. And he grew on me with his silliness. His arrogance didn’t bother me at all. I even found that comical. He just could make it as a comedian but not at my expense. No fuckin’ way. ....
There are a lot of people like him that need to know that the word nigger, though it’s spoken out amongst Black people to each other in public, that does not mean others should use it. Yeah, they have a right to Freedom of speech. Now that the word has gone public, it has caused an entire new set of problems. Some White people want to use the word. Some Black people don’t use the word. The word is out there now for all to use. Okay. Cool. But just like, you shouldn’t run into a crowed theatre and yell fire, without being prosecuted. White people shouldn’t use the word nigger and not expect some kind of a confrontation. Why couldn’t the word nigger go into hiding like its cousin honky did? I mean… that was a popular word at one time. It just dropped off the scene. I guess since White people didn’t walk around embracing that word in public… it went away, sort of. ....
Honky was taken off the charts and replaced with the less confusing cracker. Kind of ironic that both words (nigga and cracka) can drop the “er” and still ring that bell. Honky didn’t have that sticktoitness that nigger and cracka did. Nigger was tradition, waaayyy old school. They both have always carried a negative connotation. Fighting words even. Now it’s, nigger please. ....
I’m at peace, yes peace with the word coming at me from another nigga (unless it’s a gun point or something) because we share THAT common history, a history that the “new jack” generation has taken nigga and embraced it. God bless ‘em, is all I can say. The word still has such horror behind it. The generations after the civil rights, Blacks and Whites (everyone else basically follows) are too far removed from that history that was just 50 years ago. Just 50 years ago. They have their own overstanding of the word and it’s legacy. All the lynching, murders, having land taken away, house burned down, entire communities burned to the ground, women raped, picnics and just plain sport… was done with the word nigger on the lips of the perpetrators.....
I hope I never have to say this to a White person again, “I thought you were my friend”. But like I said, human beings are fragile and if a White person called me a nigga/nigger, I’d have to disassociate myself from that person. ....
And in the end, I totally agree with Eddie Griffin, “my nigga”. ....
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Khalil Al.-Rashad