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July 07, 2004

Dat Ole N Word

Chuck D said something happened between 1989 and 1992 in hiphop. It was NWA of course. But then Chris Rock said he'll use it if it benefits him, given all the shorts he had to take coming up. Nelson George said something else, George Wolfe said something else. Wynton said something; Stanley Crouch said something.

Wait a minute. Now I'm confused. How many black people can you get into one documentary? Well I'll tell you who else was in it. Ice Cube, Alvin Poussaint, Donald Bogle, Bryant Gumbel, Talib Kwali, John Sally, Whoopi Goldberg, Sam Jackson, John Singleton, and that was just the last 20 minutes.

So maybe this is not a story about the N Word so much as it is about this new cable channel, Trio. Where did it come from? Where is it going? My interest is piqued.

At any rate, no I can't remember the first time some white kid used it against me. I'm sure I stopped counting. The latent effect is nil. But I do have some old handy N-Word resources. All those multivariate black responses to the various questions surrounding the word almost made it interesting enough for me to open my mind. But in the end, I think I agree most with Chris Rock. It's only an interesting subject because saying the word is something whitefolks can't do, and it blows their minds that there is actually something they can't do.

Whatever.

UPDATE: Re-revisit an old subject. Nicely done at P6 last August.

Posted by mbowen at July 7, 2004 12:06 AM

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Comments

Trio is a pretty niche station with a small subscriber base out of NYC.

They do some pretty great programming, mostly with a New York hipster sensibility.

3 or 4 times a year they take on some "taboo" or "controversial" topics in popular culture and examines it in a VH-1 soundbite kind of way.

It works.

They also have a pretty awesome library of concert films.

There are days when I'm in love with the channel.

Posted by: Jason at July 7, 2004 10:34 AM