And now some new school etiquette via Rachel Jeantel:
MORGAN: Was there anything you wished you had said, right, when you finished and you went home and you saw the reaction, and everyone giving you a hard time.
So was there anything you wished you have said when you were in there?
JEANTEL: Nigga.
MORGAN: Why?
JEANTEL: People -- the whole world say it's a racist word. Mind you -- mind you, around 2000, that was not. They changed it around, I think. It started spelling it n-i-g-g-a. Nigga.
MORGAN: What does that mean to you, that -- that way of spelling it? What does that word mean to you?
JEANTEL: That means a male.
MORGAN: A black male?
JEANTEL: No, any kind of male.
MORGAN: Black or white?
JEANTEL: Any kind -- Chinese could say nigga. That's my Chino nigga. They could say that.
MORGAN: And rappers and everything use it in the music? And that's what they mean?
JEANTEL: They all say it. Yes, but nigger -- I advise you not to be by black people, because they're not going to have it like that.
MORGAN: Why?
JEANTEL: Because that's the racist word. MORGAN: They're two different words.
JEANTEL: Yes.
MORGAN: And they have just different meanings in -- in your community?
JEANTEL: No, in a generation...
MORGAN: To young people, you mean?
JEANTEL: ...not young people. Old people use that, too.
Wow, it's all so clear to me now.
Nigger = bad
Nigga = good
Couldn't be simpler.
Who knew?
I wonder if this (the use of the "word" nigga) is going to catch on now that it has the genius Rachel Jeantel seal of approval? She came right out and said it, that "nigger" is racist but "nigga" is somehow okay. It's as if she was trying to convey that everyone should be using the word nigga as some sort of a pronoun for "male of any race."
I'm kind of getting the feeling that it's going to be racist if everyone doesn't go along with this new, authentic vernacular. And we wouldn't want to be racists so I just don't see any way of getting around it. The only real problem I see is that there has to be some kind of female equivalent like, say, "niggi" to describe all women. I would like some interviewer to put that question to the brilliant and gifted Rachel..."So Rachel, may I call you Rachel? Or would it be more appropriate to refer to you as niggi?" It would be hilarious, too, if future guests of Piers were to greet him with, "Wassup, nigga?"
But on a serious note: I do wonder if this little incident will define vulgarity down and we actually do find "nigga" to be entering the realm of common use by all people? Well, by all low intelligence voters, anyway. Something to think about during the buildup to the race war.
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