Chuck D has directly responded to Suge Knight’s suggestion that we should all drop the term “African-American” in support of the N-word.
The Public Enemy star is not seeing eye to eye with the latest comments from record producer Knight about using the N-word.
On Monday, Knight spoke to TMZ cameras and bashed the use of the term “African-American” saying that the term is offensive because he isn’t from Africa.
Despite not liking the term “African-American,” Knight said that he is OK with being called the N-word as long as the person isn’t using it in a derogatory fashion.
While Chuck D does agree that the term African-American is not technically an interchangeable term for Black people, Chuck D does not believe that replacing it with the N-word is a better option.
Chuck D said that he also felt like the term African-American isn’t exactly synonymous to Black people because there are some whites who are of African descent as well.
That’s about where the agreeing stops, however, and Chuck D wants to make sure that nobody takes Knight’s comments and tries to push the belief that the N-word is OK.
“Being called Black in America is the struggle to keep us moving and breathing over bloody water,” Chuck D said. “Being a n****r or n***a without the context of history is like drowning in bloody water, dragging down those yet knowing to swim.”
Chuck D went on to say that rappers don’t really hold the right to use the word in their music for creative purposes because the use of the word itself just isn’t that creative in the first place.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer explained that any creative artists can make great music without having to use the N-word repetitively. He slammed rappers who use the word more than three times in one song as “lazy.”
Hopefully, his comments will encourage some rappers and other artists to try to be a little more creative and acknowledge the tragic past and violent roots that extend from the N-word. Perhaps the first step to eliminating the word from much of society’s daily vocabulary is to eliminate it from the music first.
