“Watch out…(insert racially derogatory term describing yourself here)”
I was over at a friend’s house on the other side of Bangkok a couple of days ago, and he and some of his buddies were playing basketball on a hoop they set up in front of their house.
“Nice shot, nigga.” “Watch out, nigga” “No way, nigga”. It seemed every other word out of their mouth was “nigga.” These guys who were playing basketball were 4 Asian-Americans from the U.S., all quite into hip-hop culture. I wondered to myself if a black person were here, would they still be using the word “nigga” as frequently?
The cultural irony of people using a degorative slur amongst themselves as a term of endearment amongst themselves is something I assume has been studied before, and beyond the scope of what I am trying to write about. The strange fact to me was how grown men (25 years old or so) would imitate this, and whether or not other minority groups have the right to use this term amongst themselves.
I also tried to think if there’s any other term similar to “nigga”, and the only ones I could come up with were situations where friends will use words like “dumbass” with each other, but in a more playful way if one of them does something stupid. The word takes on quite a different meaning than when someone you don’t know calls you it.