This has been a nice debate, but as usual, folks box themselves into a rhetorical trap. Many posters have already point out the paradox and hypocrisy inherent in any anger shown toward Ms. Lopez.
First and foremost, any use of "nigga" or its variants is despicable speech, crude at best. If you are going to use this worse with frequency, for any purpose, then you abdicate the right to dictate its use or be offended by the color of the person or the manner in which they intend it.
Secondly, people that patronize music and videos by artists who preach misogyny, objectification of women, drug use, victimization of the weak, and worship of thug life, have a lot of nerve being upset with J-Lo for innocuous use of the common thug "term of endearment".
Lastly, as has been pointed out by other posters, depending on your cultural upbringing, Puerto Ricans, depending on the neighborhood, are as "black" as African Americans. Same neighborhoods, same schools, same music, same lifestyle. J-Lo is from the South Bronx, which is all Black/Hispanic, so I'm sure she feels comfortable using that term casually among her Black peers, some of whom I am sure have referred to J-lo and her Puerto Rican self as "my nigga". J-Lo is not the problem. It is the glamorization of the N-word in the guise of being "real" in all things "street".
|