Let me start by addressing my white friends, DON’T TRY THIS MESS WITH ME. Seriously, y’all know me better than that, but just in case the notice has been rewritten. Ok, we can move along to Terrence Howard.
Speaking with Access Hollywood about his smash hit show, ‘Empire’, Howard ventured into a discussion on using the N-Word on the show in season 2. He felt it would build the authenticity of the show and take things to the next level.
He said:
I believe, if we’re gonna really tackle racism…If we’re gonna tackle bigotry, if we’re gonna tackle homophobia — we need to tackle it dead one….Since n*gga is used in almost every conversation in most black neighborhoods why is it that we don’t hear it on TV anymore? Are white people afraid of it? Did they create the word? But if this is something that we use on a daily basis, then let’s address what it REALLY means?
We need to address it straight up and down. As long as we keep calling each other ‘n*gga’, along the way, we’re gonna treat each other like that.
We need to address it straight up and down. As long as we keep calling each other ‘n*gga’, along the way, we’re gonna treat each other like that.
As if the nonsense wasn’t high enough already, Howard openly shares how he allows the white people he grew up to address him with the N-Word.
My friends use it. My white friends, ‘What’s up my n*gga?’ It has taken on this term to us. But it’s blown out of proportion outside the world. Some of my white friends, who I’ve grown up with, when I talk to them on a daily basis. when they use it, it doesn’t have any mal [sic] intent to associate it with that. It’s just a noun now; it’s an adjective….It describes a moment, it describes a feeling. It no longer describes a state of a race or a human being.
This is beyond ridiculous to me, but here we have another example of the “New Black” entertainers that don’t want to see race or history any more. They want to swept things under the rug and just move on. There is no acknowledgement of the struggles of the ancestors had gone through over that word or the system of enslavement, torture, rapping, and basic destruction of our culture.
SOUND OFF: What do you think of Howard allowing his white friends to use the N-Word or it being included in season two of ‘Empire’?
PUBLIC NOTE: The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the Urban Intellectuals, affiliates or partners.
The script calls for Jamal being called a faggot and other degrading names by actors on the show, because he’s gay; this is a real life issue experienced by gay males, particularly black ones, on a daily somewhere in America. The script calls for Rhonda being ridiculed by Lucious, because she’s married to Andre; this is a real issue experienced by inter-racial couples on a daily somewhere in America, particularly at the hands of black females who feel that white females are taking all of the good black men. So, why shouldn’t the script call for a black person being called a nigga or nigger, because of his/her race; that’s a real life issue experienced by black people on a daily somewhere in America. —–> “Like I always say what’s good for the goose/Is always good for the gander/Oh, Sheila” –Ready For The World