>so guns or bloodshed are hand
>in hand with that. there
>was never a significant revolution
>without bloodshed.

I see what you mean, but what type of revolution do you think they want? Are they really looking for the France/Russia/China kind?

>now i haven't heard m1 ever
>say the word nigga so
>you can't say "they", but
>as far as stic.man i
>think it's the same reason
>why he uses "improper" english.
>now why he could be
>working on that, he may
>yet to get that out
>of his vocab. it is
>also a way to reach
>the folks who he is
>trying to reach. common was
>on tavis with kevin powell
>and dead prez in april
>and this topic came up.
> common was saying in
>his use of the word
>nigga, it may not be
>so p/c but it might
>reach a nigga who might
>be turned off by "african"
>or "my brother". you know
>how niggas be, "oh you
>on that black shit now",
>" i ain't no mooooslim",
>or "fuck that back to
>africa shit". so it's a
>way to reach some people
>who might not pay attention
>to the message from the
>jump.

I think I might have caught a piece of that episode, but I certainly wish I could have seen that part. To tell you the truth, and I'm about to be a bit harsh, I think what Common said is bull. It sounds great, even better than the crap people will tell you about "reclaiming" the word, but I don't believe it. I'm Canadian, so I could be wrong, but as I understand it, many American blacks have been freely using the word 'nigga', positively and negatively since slavery days. I think the rise in the use of the word today came when hip hop became more profane (early 90's), bringing 'nigga' into more common use in the same vein as 'bitch', 'motherf--ker', etc. I think this was not a surprising turn of events as hip hop as always been rooted in the streets, but your average rapper didn't get too raw in commercial songs until the time of NWA.

So people telling me about uses of the word with thought behind it doesn't impress me. Conscious use of the word: the Last Poets. Offensively conscious use of the word: NWA. Since then: people not taking a stand. Listen to the song "Sucka N---a" by tribe Called Quest and you will hear what I feel to be the usual thought process behind the use of the word.

To conclude, here's why I think Common was fronting. When you hear him in uncensored conversation, the word will come out. He has conscious ideas, but, like stic.man (thanks 4 the correction, I never realized that), Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and many others, he hasn't taken the final step towards freeing his mind. Question: can you be an African and a nigger at the same time (mentally)?