Are We Still Niggas?

I see many of my young friends still refer to themselves as “Niggas.” They say, “My Nigga” and “Good Nigga” “Still my Nigga.” That’s sad.

I’m aware that the hip hop culture now says that “Nigga” is a term of endearment and affection. So when a person says, “What’s up my Nigga?” It means he is down with the hip hop culture. In the hip hop world even whites call each other “Niggas.” In the world of hip hop it carries no negative meanings at all; in fact it’s just the opposite.

However, the label Nigga or Nigger is not viewed that way by the rest of the world. It is still a stereotype of a poor ignorant person who can’t read, can't spell, is lazy and performs poorly everywhere except in bed, on the basketball court and the football field.

The Hip Hop culture has helped this generation to internalize a self degrading and negative label. The slave master called us that but he could never get us to believe it and wear it as a badge of pride; especially outside of our racial circles.

The Hip Hop culture has succeeded in doing what the Klan and racists couldn’t do for 300 years. It has convinced our young that it’s a good thing to be a “Nigga.” Many of our youth have accepted the lie.

The late James Baldwin once said, "You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger.”

When we start believing it and accepting it, we are conquered.

There is a verse in the bible in Romans 8:37 that talks about God’s people overcoming the negatives, having conquered them through his power. The words are, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

To see another generation dive into a pool of negative spit and swim in it means that this generation has not become conquerors; it has been conquered.

If the present trend continues, when Jesus returns to begin the rest of eternity he will probably be greeted affectionately by millions of young believers, who will shout with one voice, “What’s up my Nigga?”

I wonder how he will respond?