I was in the kitchen when my little brother comes up to me and says " So N*gga and K*ffir are brothers?", I wasn't shocked - dude asks a lot of questions like this - I was just diseapointed that he already knew these words without their history or meaning. I sat him down and we thought on it for a minute ; I didnt know where to start, do I tell him about racism and oppression first or respect and anti-ignorantness? I couldnt decide so I just delved right into racism and words used to subjectify, label and oppress, I told him that it goes both ways, that any one of any race can be a racist if they are prejudists. By the time I had finished explaining the book by Steve Biko ' I write what I like' he still looked confused and he asked, " So these words only hurt people who care too much about them? Why dont we just pretend it never meant what it did before?", I almost cracked up, dude is right; we give weight to these words. By being overly sensitive about ...
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