Sat 16 Aug 2008
on hiphop and the use of “no homo”
Posted by anjali under california , culture , hiphop , technology for the masses[9] Comments
Jay Smooth really makes me nod my head with these two lines:
“But as a general rule if you’re not the original target of an insult, you can’t be the one to reclaim it. And 9 times out of 10, if you’re not sure whether you should use it, you probably shouldn’t.”
Yep. That goes for white people wondering why blacks can use the word nigger and they can’t, that goes for people calling everything lame throwing around the word “ghetto”, that goes for folks throwing around the word “retard”, and so on and so forth. That doesn’t go for the word dude. Anyone can say dude :>
UPDATE: Eric Stoller, a man I respect greatly, corrected me in the comments. I didn’t check myself on using the word “lame” while discussing offensive connotations of other words. Oops. Will promptly take that word out of use in my vocabulary.
UPDATE #2: Kevin @ A Slant Truth shares a new meme inspired by Sylvia @ ProblemChylde — changing NO HOMO to SO HOMO. I’m enjoying using it so far. Try it yourself.
August 16th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
if i had the patience and discipline to coordinate such things, I would’ve included a skit with various white people saying “no negro”
August 16th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Jay that’s a great idea :> thx for commenting! I’m passionate about the use of words and their connotations, so your videos on these topics are quite fascinating to me.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Ummm. No disrespect cuz I love your blog, but this: “that goes for people calling everything lame “ghetto”” is really ironic since you used the ableist “lame” while denouncing ghetto, retard, etc. Just wanted to say that lame should really be added to the “can’t” list :-)
August 16th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Eric my friend, you are SO correct. No disrespect taken. I *have* been using the word lame without an understanding of where it has come from or its possible connotation.
Ah, a great example of me preachin’ and not watchin’ my own words. i’ll update the post with this important info. thanks for reading!
August 17th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Lame still finds its way out of my mouth sometimes. It is difficult to work through the socialization of language… great post on words and ableism over at feminist philosophers: http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/words-and-able-ism/
Also, I am humbled by your kind words :-)
August 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am
[...] on hiphop and the use of “no homo” [...]
August 17th, 2008 at 10:29 am
i saw jay’s video on dr. king a while back but didn’t know about the illdoctrine vlog… so glad you’ve been linking!
and definitely nice to see ableist language finally being taken seriously by people…
August 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Cripchick thanks for commenting, yay! yeah, i’m realizing how easy it is to fall into using language that’s able-ist and ____phobic and all that.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I hadn’t heard of it before this video. I forwarded it to my über-queer little bro (and he has formally approved of that title, by the way). I have to wonder about “lame”, though… is it even used to indicate disability anymore? The only common use I know of is “lame duck”, which I can see as being assumed to mean the neo-vernacular lameness.
(I might be wrong, of course — after all, I was totally ignorant on “no homo”.)