By now we’ve all heard about the racist comments that Dog The Bounty Hunter spouted out while on the phone with his son. Yesterday I heard about his apology on the radio. It was rather hilarious actually. He said stuff like he feels connected to the Black community and as such thought he was allowed to use that word; he uses it all the time among his black friends; and (this one is the kicker) he now knows that “he’s not black” and he can’t use the word. I’m serious, that’s what the guy said.
Context Of Language
First off, as a black man, you know what side of the fence I’m sitting on with this. With that said. The N word is a bad word. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. However, there is something to be said for context.
I’m not sure where it originated from. It could be a Culture thing, a Black thing, a Hood thing, or a Hip Hop thing, who knows (let’s just call it Hip Hop to be neutral). But the Hip Hop community has a way of taking negative words and flipping them to mean something totally different. Case in point, words like bad, mad, sick, wicked, ill, etc. Flip open Websters and you’ll know that none of these is a good thing. But take a walk down to the hood and you’ll hear them being used to mean something totally different.