ThAts0RanDOM!

A week ago I read an article about a young boy by the name of Jonathan McCoy. Jonathan has been emphasizing the message of banning the word Nigger/Nigga.  Checkout the BlackVoices article by Laura Adibe and the video of young Jonathan below:

Too often, as a society, we insult our young people, labeling them as a lost generation. Here’s a young man who has taken leadership in to his 11-year-old hands. gave a rousing speech earlier this year to his church in Baltimore about why our community needs to drop the ‘N’ word. His speech, “A New Petition,” called for the discontinuation of that six-letter word, and the slang usage of the word.

Jonathan E. McCoy

“I’m sending a message to everyone who knowingly or ignorantly uses this word to describe our people, whether you’re a gangster rapper who uses it to communicate with your boys, or someone who looks down on us who haven’t got a college education,” said the pint-sized orator. “Whatever the case, it’s time to discontinue the use of this word. It is implausible that 40 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we still use this word that holds no worth in our lives nor our future.”

So after watching this video I was truly inspired.  Like the article stated I too labeled the younger generations a lost generation, however Jonathan McCoy has restored my hope.  I pray that he becomes worldy but not a victim of the world.

Now on to the topic of the word Nigger/Nigga. I will admit I have used this word plenty of times to describe someone ignorant and I even used it as a term of endearment.  However, I’ve always felt so conflicted when using it.  Even though I used the A and not the ER, I still believe that it holds the same emotion.  As an African American woman I feel that the word shouldn’t be passed on to generations in a positive light.  I believe that we should teach our kids what the word means, teach them the different uses of the word, and allow them to choose on whether they should use the word.

After all it is just a word and WE have the power to minimize it.  I believe that is what Jonathan’s message was all about.  Minimizing the word and making it powerless to the point that WE don’t have to use the word anymore.  Jay-Z told Oprah that the younger generations took a negative word and made it smaller by using it ourselves.  I agree, and will I continue to use the word? I just might, but I will make sure that I’m more aware of how I use the word and being conscious on what other words I can replace it with.  We should make that a challenge and build up our vocabularies.  It’s always good to broaden our horizons.