"Nigger" as a social condition

This video touches on a bit of what I speak about as far as "nigger" being a word that can be changed and transformed as people see fit. This particular scene doesn't focus on "nigger" as condition (although Adam does talk about that too).

The idea of nigger-as-condition never really occurred to me until I read a paper by Emily Yeh entitled, "Hip-hop gangsta or most deserving of victims? Transnational migrant identities and the paradox of Tibetan racialization in the USA." In this paper she speaks about the racialization, a way of designating generalized characteristics and attributing these behaviors to another ethnic group or race, of Tibetan-Americans. When young Tibetans embrace aspects/subcultures of black culture, they become (often negatively) associated with low class black Americans who listen to and create "gangsta rap." The appeal of gangsta rap comes from transnationalistic feelings of Chinese oppression and displacement from the Tibetan homeland. Although many black Americans would most likely disagree with Tibetan-Americans using the n-word, one should acknowledge the similar relationship of feelings of historical oppression and inequalities. This explains why "nigger" and all of its variations are used by a wide array of people from different backgrounds, but who share the same social status. This is also seen among Middle Easterns who may be called, or refer themselves as, "sand niggers". Also when speaking on social constraints, it is understandable why John Lennon referred to women as niggers of the world since they were oppressed by patriarchal systems of domination. Even racialized Tibetan-Americans may call each other "tiggas." In recognizing the word "nigger" as a condition, one can begin to see how "nigger" is perceived by other minority cultures and how they have dubbed this word into something they can relate to through lived experience. For the sake of addressing those who wish to argue that "nigger" is not just an explanation of a social conditon, I will say the following. "Nigger" has many other meanings and forms of expression, for example, the n-word can be used as an insult, it can be spoken in ignorance without knowing the implications, and a may be utilized without the attachment of low-class statuses (upper-class blacks saying "nigger"). However, I wish to concentrate on the idea that "nigger" relates to condition.

Gil Scott Heron & the Flobots

When I first starting writing about the relationship between these two pieces I didn't think I would be posting it on the blog. However, I saw ideas of anthropological theory, globalization, and themes relevant to culture studies that prompted me to post my analysis. Expect more analyses on culture and literature!

“The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal/ The revolution will not get rid of the nubs/ The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner/ The revolution will not be televised, brother/…The revolution will be LIVE.”

“There is a war going on for your mind/ Media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages and online magazine racks/ CoverGirl cutouts throw up pop-up ads infecting victims with silicone shrapnel/ Worldwide passenger pigeons deploy paratroopers/ Now it's raining pornography, lovers take shelter/…We are the insurgents.”

The latter quote is the intro song to the Flobots’ debut album “Fight With Tools,” a highly charged political album that confronts issues of government power and the “nightmarish side of globalization” (Appadurai 2006). I present this song in analyzing Gil Scott Heron’s poem since the song resonates with a modern-day audience in relationship to themes of revolution in the 1970’s. The bombardment of media montages is viewed as an oversaturation of popular culture that is corrupting the minds of individuals. In Heron’s poem, he provides an overemphasis of this collage of popular images. In doing so, the reader becomes conscious of the mass production and advertisement of American culture that so many Americans ingest in everyday life. One might be motivated to believe that this is actually a revolution against “white culture” when Heron speaks about police brutality, soap operas, and Rare Earth. However, he also mentions several popular representations of African-American images like Julia, Willie Mae, and Watts. The revolution is not a revolution for the black man or woman—it is a revolution to regain consciousness from media montages. This revolution, however, is designed to systematically overthrow and undermine images of popular culture, thus reclaiming power over one’s own mind. The relationship between the two pieces is reinforced by the last phrase in each piece. In Heron’s poem, the phrase, “The revolution will be LIVE,” indicates the rejection of televised images and the reality of live actions that will take the media by storm. In an identical manner, the Flobots fight against this attack on the mind by proclaiming to be the insurgents. Insurgency and revolution go hand in hand in this context of destruction of media influence and the rebirth of psychological self-efficacy and individuality.

Aggressive & Failed Assimilation: Discourse on Les Jeunes

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Aggressive & Failed Assimilation: Discourse on Les Jeunes

Discourse Among "D'origine Etrangere"

This was going to be my blank canvas to construct and develop my thesis for a paper regarding the French judicial system and its effects on non-French immigrants. However, since I have such strong aversions for ethnocentrism and negative stereotyping, this may seem more like an opinion column out of some newspaper. Personally, I am partial to rehabilitative models, as opposed to strict penal systems, especially in juvenile matters. Maturity has yet to reach a number of young children who commit petty crimes, like stealing a cell phone for instance, so how will incarcerating these individuals advance their maturity? In fact, that seems to be the focal point of my argument. Every government, whether it is France or the United States of America, encourages and polices an extent of public order and maturity. In other words, you will be reprimanded if you are a menace to society. The debate here is not in the idea of reprimanding deviance, rather how the deviance is reprimanded. If a fifteen-year-old boy steals his neighbor's car and crashes it into a stop sign should he serve time in prison, or should he experience an alternate form of punishment that corrects his or her behavior? Understand that both systems strive to eliminate deviance, but rehabilitative models "accept that a minor's criminal misbehavior is symptomatic of factors beyond his or her control--such as bad parenting, nefarious influences, and underprivileged living conditions--rather than a conscious and deliberate will to break the law" (Terrio 2009:48). The lines begin to get blurry when speaking about serious offenses where a minor is involved in manslaughter or rape. Even in serious offenses previously mentioned, the minor may have suffered or been influenced by factors beyond his or her control. The point is that juveniles are still very psychologically immature and have yet to fully develop the set of laws that society sets up. With this premise, I acknowledge and argue that the current French judicial system, which advocates and enforces sanctity of public order and social etiquette, induces alienation and social rebellion. Thus, the relative lack of a rehabilitative option creates an environment where deviance is not corrected, but reinforced in prison and/or temporarily suppressed around figures of authority.