Given the trials and tribulations we have overcome as a people of color, why do we have this incessant need to continue to call each other the one word that has been used to strip us of our humanity throughout history? We use it as a badge of acknowledgement and friendship among each other as though it was an endowment of love and not a word used to denigrate, humiliate, and keep us shackled to a slave mentality that refuses to be exorcised and regulated to the pass where it belongs. We call each other 'nigga' as easily as we say 'brotha' and embrace it as a word of friendship in greeting. If someone of a different racial heritage dared to use this word among us we'd be ready to shed blood for the insult that it is. Sure, you may say that the word has a different meaning coming from someone else because they meant harm, but I'm telling you that every time the word is used by anyone then harm is always being done. When a black man first called his brother 'nigga' it wasn't said to embrace him in love, he used it to elevate himself because he saw himself as better than the other man.
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