Niggapino
“Yeah, like what are you?” “What? I don’t even know what a ‘Filipino’ is.” “Haha, so like is that a different type of Chinese.” “What?! You’re black? Wow, I would have never known.” “You got that good hair.”
The list could go on. I usually get more ignorant responses than that. Anyway, I am a “niggapino.” Half black and Filipino. In my previous blog posts I mention who is what and how and whatever. As a result for those reasons I felt like this title was appropriate for this week’s blog because throughout the readings and discussion it was mostly focused on who is allowed to say “nigga” and who isn’t. And honestly, I don’t understand why people who are not black want to debate about it? It is so simple to get that if you are not black you have no say if we’re able to say it or not? Everyone wants to say “nigga” but don’t want to be a nigga. It’s annoying — not even annoying it’s just flat out stupid to even have discussions over it. Just common sense.


From this week’s readings my favorite ones are The New Jim Crow excerpt from Michele Alexander and an excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told by Alex Haley. Alexander’s excerpt gave a brief explanation as to why black men in America are dispropotionately arrested and are most likely not able to find a job because of felony charges. It then further explains that they are not able to function like a “normal” human being in society because again, they have no source of income because no jobs and mostly shunned from their family or anyone else who they may know. With all those reasons they go back to jail if they cannot find any means to support themselves. Black men with felonies goes through a cycle of repeating the same crimes over and over. With this in effect, the U.S.’s institutions that are dealt with justice or crimes, they attack black people the most than white people because they want to keep them back and not let them flourish or just live in general to be a person, but a black person. Likewise, if you want to be a nigga go ahead to be harassed and followed by the police and most likely have the potential of being killed over it. That’s all what niggas do anyway.
Furthermore, Malcolm X’s excerpt from his autobiography is from chapter one which is titled “Nightmare.” From what I remember is that he mentions that the KKK is the majority in where he lives and that his father is a preacher of Christianity. He then goes on saying that his father was murdered by the KKK because he went against their beliefs and also to include that he worked with Marcus Garvey. As so, his father’s life insurance wouldn’t help or give the money to his family which they ruled his father’s death as suicide. With that being said, his family had no source of fundings to support their lives and his mother especially was labeled as “crazy” and “unfit” to take care of Malcolm and his other siblings. The government came in and broke their family apart by splitting them all up and taking his mother. Of course this chapter would be titled “Nightmare” because it is appropriate like how I titled my blog for this week. Malcolm was only a child when this all happened and had no control of it. He couldn’t help that his family is black and that his father was murdered by the KKK — everything was out of his reach. He couldn’t help that his mother was like “that.” He coudn’t do anything that his family had fallen apart. He couldn’t. It was primarily because he’s black — a nigga. He was living the nigga life — always going through the roughness of life and especially encoutering with the KKK at such a young age. Even later in his life he was doing “nigga” stuff like committing crimes, dealing with drugs, and eventually jailed for almost ten years for jewelery theft. He was living the nigga life.

Ultimately, everything makes sense that if you’re not black and don’t want to live through the “nigga” life then don’t say it. It’s just math. I can’t ever argue with anyone who isn’t black that wants to say “nigga.” They’re not a nigga like me. They don’t understand the history behind the word “nigga” — it wasn’t even ours to begin with. White people used it to degrade us and to hurt us to put us in our place. Later in history, black people took the slur “nigger” and reclaimed it as “nigga.” I used the word as a term of endearment and say it to my friends who are black as well. I don’t say it to anyone else. I was raised to not be afraid of the word, but also don’t let others who aren’t black call me that because they are literally calling me a “nigger.”
