I Hate Niggas…Of All Colors…Even Myself?
I love Chris Rock’s Bring The Pain “bit” on Niggas, because it speaks to the deepest most guttural truth many people have. Though I don’t like the relation ‘nigga’ is paired with Black. Or it’s predecessor ‘nigger’. I’m not offended in the sense where these words give me personal pause, because I’ve resolved that within myself through education, self-reflection, and a lot of love/encouragement for great people that raised and taught me into a man.I speaking more to global sociocultural aspects which more often then not govern the framework we have to educate people out of.
There is a piece of self-hatred that I believe Black people by and large have to deal with and self hatred for others as well seeing that we are all one race of people. This is my personal experience. You don’t want to admit hating yourself, because it is painful, but what about your Mother or Father…still too painful? Okay your brother or sister…still too much? Okay your friends and neighbors…getting easier to project your cultural displeasure and denouncements now??
Well we can journey the six degrees of hatred outside of ourselves, but it will still lead back to within us as individuals. You can deal with the a problem without dealing with the pathology and you can’t deal with the pathology outside in, but from the inside out…
I hate niggas…a clean convicted controversial, yet casual comment. Casual in the since that as long as we keep it about “those niggas over there” and not the nigga staring us back in the mirror first it is fun and easy to talk about.
I’m not saying we are all niggas or trying to defend a state of seeming shiftlessness, but I am saying that this fervent hatred and emotion when going on about how much we hate niggas is more often fueled by something a lot closer to home that we fail to deal with. That family member struggling with addiction, the scares of slavery still open wounds, the bitter taste of poverty that never fully leaves your tongue, the racialized indignities suffered purely of skin color or more commonly perhaps your economic standing.
There is a maze of attrition with respects to our humanity toward one another that is as baffling as it is unaddressed. There is so much good (still) to our humanity. One of the best parts is our ability to not just make it through the maze as we can see many animals do, but also have the ability to analyze our shortcomings in getting to a point of solvency. With that we are not only able to improve on our previous efforts but construct mechanisms to measure that improvement and even encourage it. That should be the goal! Lets not just hate niggas, but lets create conditions where there are standards and supports in place to assure there is no need to rest in “niggerdom”. The more resources poured in the more agency given. The more knowledge poured in the more ignorance drowned out.
I hate that which provokes niggas to be niggas more than I hate niggas.
Look Inward and Bring The Pain indeed… It isn’t about being self righteous, but right within yourself ~
Onajé Malik Lott
Quick acknowledgement that I could have used The Last Poets’ “Niggas Are Scarred Of Revelution” as a reference point as I believe that is where Chris borrows this bit from, but Chris is more close to the gut/raw than the brain/introspection.
The Last Poets - Niggas Are Scared Of Revelution:
