Some Thoughts on Identity, History, and the Origins of "Nigga"
So today my partner was talking about a long-held frustration of his: the assertion, popularized by Kendrick Lamar and oft repeated by many fans of hip-hop and hotepery, that the word “nigga” came from the Ethiopian word for king: Negus. As an Ethiopian-American, Gabriel’s list of grievances with this is fairly long and very justified: the continued exotification of East African culture and history (including, of course, the widespread exotification and oversimplification of Egyptian history and culture) by Black Americans, the danger in romanticizing the brutality of monarchy and the specific erasure of the brutality of Ethiopian monarchs, the fact that that’s not even how you say Negus (his uncle is named Negus, btw), and so on.
He could go on for ages - but not before I always jump in with why this assertion and so much of the mythology that those that we’d call Hoteps proclaim pisses me - a person of West African descent raised in the US and living both the Nigerian diaspora and Black American experience - the fuck off as well. It is always complicated for me, as a Black woman who carries the intergenerational trauma of violent colonialism (my father was a survivor of the Biafran War - at least in body, if not spirit - while his own brother was not) in her blood and not the intergenerational trauma of forced enslavement. As a Black woman born in the US who has every day been subjected to the violent white supremacy that this country loves to subject Black Americans to, and yet also has the privilege of clear connections to her African roots because they are literally one generation away. This means that I react to this from my lived Nigerian-American experience and my lived Black-American experience, but not from the experience of a descendant of enslaved Black people. So in much of the following paragraphs I’m talking about myself, but also…I’m not always. It’s “we” but also sometimes I’m outside of that “we.” It’s….complicated. I said that right?
This discussion - which comes up a lot when your partner’s uncle is named Negus - always gets me in my feelings, but they are in many ways distinctly different feelings than Gabriel’s. Yes, Gabriel is so spot on with the question of: Why do we gotta be kings? Why would we want to position ourselves as the historical oppressors of our own people? But also I ask: Why do we gotta be East African when we so clearly aren’t?
So much of this mythology that builds ties from the descendants of enslaved Black people to East African royalty doesn’t just feel like a desire to play dress up in classist monarchist fairy tales - it also feels like an active rejection of actual West African heritage. Our history is deep and rich and has real value. And Black Americans have been pulled from that history by the active efforts of violent white supremacy. Further: West Africans themselves have seen their own history violently suppressed. The genocide of West African peoples by white supremacy is not just a story of enslavement and colonialism - it is also the deliberate and continued wide-spread destruction of our history. So why do so many Black Americans, in the search for history and pride, seem to agree with the white supremacist narrative that there is nothing to be found in West African history and heritage? Why is it so easily cast aside for mythology of a lineage that isn’t even ours?
The stories of Black American and West African history and survival are messy, at times quite upsetting, often inspiring, and forever intertwined. We are connected in a way that cannot be undone. We should be proud of that. We should be proud of what we have survived across two continents. We should not turn away from a painful history, when that history also speaks to so much of our strength, creativity, and resilience.
I know that African/Black American relationships can be complicated and fraught, with white supremacy stoking anti-Blackness in many Africans, and xenophobia in Black Americans. I have talked with so many of my Black American friends, who have descended from ancestors who were enslaved, who feel great pain over the loss of a history and a home that was stolen from them. I also know that many of my Nigerian relatives deeply feel the pain of rejection from their kin long stolen away. Many wonder why, when the blood connection to African roots is here today, alive and well, so many decide to instead invent new origin stories based on the other side of the continent.
I know that there is appeal, in a world that has said for hundreds of years that Black Americans are worthless and that our history was not worth recording or claiming, to tie oneself to lineages of power and unshakeable independence. On the surface, it may seem disempowering to embrace a lineage that has been just as devastated by violent white supremacy as Black America has been. But it is only disempowering if we refuse to look past white supremacist narratives about who we are, who we have been, and who we can be.
East African culture and history is rich and deep and glorious, and one of the many testaments to the beauty and diversity of Blackness. But it’s not my culture or history, and I recognize the privilege that I have had as a Black American with a Nigerian parent to always be able to see, and touch my roots. But for the majority of Black Americans, East African culture and history is not theirs either. While the ties may seem to have been severed by racist violence, the culture and history is still here, waiting. I believe that there is healing - in the US and in West Africa - in reestablishing and nurturing that connection that simply cannot be found elsewhere.
My partner made a beautiful point in regard to the “Negus” issue that tipped off our conversation, that I think really drives the point home. He said while the ahistorical narrative of the Black American use of “nigga” as proof of ties to Ethiopian monarchy does little more than to glorify a different type of exploitation and oppression, the actual history of the use of the word - the reclamation and repurposing of a term used to cause so much harm - is a story of creativity, triumph, and self-love that is woven through our entire history and connects us to our roots and one that says so much more about who we are than a story about an Ethiopian king. The actual story is one to be proud of, and our heritage is one to be proud of as well.
Thank you for reading. If you liked this newsletter and want to support my work, please consider subscribing here:
ncG1vNJzZmihmpq8rq3OpayoZqOqr7TAwJyiZ5ufonyxe9KopJ5lpJ28trPHrapmp55itqWxza2grbFdnba0wM6rsA%3D%3D