Trinidad was eloquent in expressing that only people who have a close relationship with him may call him that. He quickly debunked Ben Ferguson's argument about using the expression to make money by reasserting the primacy of relationships over capital.
Which brings up something very real. Most White people don't have the requisite relationship to Black people to use that term to address them. All of this noise about "rap stars use it, why can't we" is a red herring (and ignores the social, political, historical, and economic context in which that term arose). The real question, the one that actually would transcend the history of the term, is what would it take for Whites to build genuinely close relationships with Black people. Or men with women. Or the able-bodied with a person with a disability. Or a cis-gendered person with a transgendered person. Or a middle/owning class person with a working/poor class person. You get the point.
Trinidad referred to the social context he shares with his compatriots. In other words, people who are "his niggas" share solidarity with him in the ways that the state targets Black people (men and women may I add) for imprisonment and death, targets Black labor, and targets Black wealth. We've yet to hear about an unarmed White man killed by the police! To build relationships across race requires appreciating the historical, political, and social context in which Black is created. Don't presume an understanding of it. Don't whitesplain history to Black people. We don't need an explanation of why we're systematically paid less than Whites and why we have less overall wealth. One consequence of "White" is that not everything is earned by good old fashioned elbow grease. It doesn't make you bad, it just provides context.
To build relationships across race may require LOADS of listening. More listening than you're comfortable with. Making a decision not to be the center of the conversation. Not to make your experience center. There may be LOTS of quiet at first. You may feel awkward and uncool (this is what Ben Ferguson could not figure out in this segment). It may take years of such listening before Black men and women (poor people, GLBTQ people, etc.) actually open up to you about a day in the life of Blackness. And once we tell you something, we don't need your opinion or feelings about it. Smile as if it was the most important thing you've ever heard (it may well be). Think to yourself what if it was and what impact that would have on your life.
But ultimately, it's elbow grease that will build these relationships. It's the decision to make someone else central, someone else's point of view, relationships central as opposed to your own experience. Maybe then you'll become someone's "nigga." However, maybe then you won't feel as compelled to use the term at all.
Suffice it to say, the SAE house mom doesn't have that relationship with anyone Black.
So it doesn't work for her to parrot Trinidad's work.
When I set out to write this post, I didn't intend for it to be a how-to guide. However, historically, nigger was born out of a context of capital over relationships, in other words, the ownership of people over the relationship. This is a relationship; however, it is not a relationship that wins trust, respect, and admiration. It is in this history the term was born.
Soooo, put the relationships above everything else. Maybe that Black person won't take a shine to you. That's fine. Hopefully you grew as a person and learned something. Maybe take notes about what went well (for that person) and what didn't and try again.
By the by, no one has a close enough relationship to me to call me "nigga," or "bitch" for that matter. Just sayin'!
