Nigger

by T.M.


How does NIGGER, a word deriving from
"Niggardly," meaning 
"Cheap," "miserly," "stingy,"
Come to be used as a derogatory term
For an entire racial class of people?
How does NIGGER become an epithet in 
The black community
For "My boy?"-- "That`s my NIGGA!"
For "Man?"-- "That NIGGA better be at Home because my son needs him!"
How does one turn the word that the Slave Trader called us 
when bringing Us into this FREE WORLD in BONDAGE
Into an everyday word?
How does one even put in their Vocabulary the word NIGGER?
It is ludicrous to me to use the word
NIGGER
When Masters beat our ancestors 
Senseless as they screamed
"Nigga this, Nigga that!"
It is senseless to use the word
NIGGER
When the same white men whose Ancestors enslaved us said
NIGGER--
As they lynched black men,
As they raped black women,
As they set aflame the homes of Civil Rights Activists,
As they kept blacks from equality with Jim Crow Laws--
All in the name of Ku Klux Klan,
Or shall I say 
Killers of Kindly Kings
Seeing that they took us from Beautiful kingdoms 
Ruled by people who bothered no one.
We are truly African-American people
Never to be called NIGGERS again
Without putting up a fight.
We have never been NIGGERS,
So when someone, even if they are
Black, brown, yellow, white,
Calls you a NIGGER
Pass on the cruel, historical events
That NIGGER
Refers to.


Nigger by T.M.

© Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be duplicated or copied without the expressed written consent of the author.



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