Yeah, Lox, I loved Richard... One cool dude...

Can't disagree with ya' on hip-hop being packaged fir white kids... That's a fact... But it originated in the black culture, just as rock 'n roll, and blues, and soul and a good portion of our pop music today... That's what I was talkin' about... Seems that black folks have *always* been influenced by European culture 'cause it was forced upon them by no choice of their own, i.e. slavery...

I mean, it's very strange to think that back in the 20s and 30s when Black bluesmen were being recorded that these musicans also were playin' all the pop and show tunes of the day... It's just when they got into the recording "studio" (for lack of a better term) they were told to do them "race" songs, i.e. the blues...

So it's no wonder that with civil rights that "Culture Street" was opened up to two-way traffic and that has been alot more profound on white folks takin' in black culture than vice versa... The blacks had 300 years of white culture and reserved their African culture more for themselves.... I mean, right up until the 1900s when some white folks were allowed inside that circle, i.e. Alan Lomax...

As for Richard Pryor??? I understand where he is coming from... There were a lot of blacks that white folks really dug... Richard was one of many... But alot of these folks weren't all that popular with black folks... Bill Cosby is a prime example... To understand this we kinda have to go back to the divide between the black folks I knew in the 60s and 70s and their parents and grandparents... I had the privilege of seein' and appreciating both sides of that divide and being a bluesman have rubbed with both sides of that divide off and on going back to my youth...

So, yeah, I understand Richard... He reminds me of alot of folks I knew back then whos parents won out... That ain't a bad thing at all... I mean, we all went thru some serious battles back then with all the "isms" and all the consciousness raisings by black folk and white folk alike...

Here's where I am with "nigga" today... First of all, it is a little "dated"... I mean, I think that alot of black folks don't use it with knowledge and respect for how it was used by black folks in the 60s and 70s... That's a good thing because it means that we have come a long way... And like you, Lox, I never could bring myself to use it because it as far as I was/am concerned it is a word off limits to white people...

But with that said, I also understand that when white people appoint themselves as monitors of the black culture that there is a colonialism that kinda rides along... That's the part where I go, "Hey, Richard can say what he wants" and so can _____________... That is the rub because "nigga" is being packages to white kids, who like some of the folks who are profiting from rap music today, are clueless about the word, it's history and it's being co=opted by young blacks in the 60s and 70s...

I guess, however, that had black folks not co-opted the word back then and took it away from Jim Crow that it would still be the property of Jim Crow and his kids and grandkids... That's a good thing... Yeah, Redneck Nation still uses the term but in it's European/Colonial "nigger" form and that is bad enough but that's all they have... They can't bring themselves to use "nigga" because even they kinda understand that "nigga" is a term that blacks have co-opted to fight fire with fire and, afterall, rednecks don't want to sound black, for gosh sakes...

B~