**Thank you to our guest blogger, Roxy, for her insight, opinion and expression of this controversial topic** 

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Lately everyone’s been talking about the “n” word.  (You know, nigger.) It’s all over the news; Whoopi and Elisabeth Hasselbeck are getting into it about the “n” word on “The View” and Fox News claims that Jesse Jackson said it off camera.  I need to talk about it.   

First off, I’m a black woman.  I’m proud to be a woman AND proud to be black.  And I refuse to use a word that has been used to degrade, berate and insult my people for centuries.  I’m not having it.  Black people as a whole have flipped the script on the use of the “n” word and I get it.  But just because the script has been flipped doesn’t make it any better and it definitely doesn’t make it right.  And it’s hypocritical to use the “n” word to your fellow black man/woman and then get upset when a non-black person uses it.  What kind of message is that sending? How are we supposed to rise above the racial bullshit when we’re sending mixed messages? I get angry when anyone of any color uses the “n” word because I feel like we’re being set back and I wonder, “What the hell would Martin Luther King, Jr. think if he heard this mess right now?” I’m not trying to preach, I’m not trying to lecture, I just needed to vent.  And while I’m venting…. 

You know what other word I hate? The “f” word.  Oh, come on.  Don’t pretend you don’t know which “f” word I’m talking about.  Fag.  That’s right I said it.  And I’m a straight person saying it too.  Gay people have flipped the script on the use of the “f” word too and I don’t like it either.  Just because you say to your fellow lesbian, gay, trans, etc., “Hey, fag, what’s up?” doesn’t make it ok! Just because you sugar coat a derogatory word and put a smiley face on the end of it doesn’t make it any less insulting.  How did you feel when you heard a straight person say to their straight friend, “Hey, why are you being such a fag right now?” Probably the same way I felt when I heard a non-black person say to their non-black friend, “Why you gotta be such a nigger?” And yes, I have heard that come out of a non-black person’s mouth before and I was ready to do some serious damage to that person.   

And I’m sure there is someone reading this right now and saying to him or her, “It depends on the context in which n______ and f__ is used.” Not to me it doesn’t.  And it shouldn’t matter to you either.   So I’ve vented.  I’m stepping down from my soapbox. 

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest!