Anyone catch The Boondocks last night? The plot was fairly interesting–what if Martin Luther King emerged from a coma in 2006? Pretty funny, right?
You would think that. By the time it was over, I felt like Richard Pryor going to Africa. Because that show has me considering never saying “nigga” again.

I won’t break down the entire plot, but the ending really didn’t sit well with me. See, in order to promote a revolutionary political party he and Huey were starting, Dr. King hired an “urban promotions company” to generate interest. Of course, this firm used a radio campaign to get people to come to a par-tay, not a political party.
There were some chuckles in that misunderstanding, but the show ended with a fiery speech from Dr. King that started with him calling the party full of people–all of whom were stereotypically “ghetto”–“ignorant niggaz.”
What followed was an extended diatribe about the ignorance of these black people, who clearly were not representative of all black folks. It seemed like a pointed attack against the underclass instead of a critique of the entirety of post-Movement black America. Just more black bourgeoise bullshit that would make Bill Cosby smile.
But what got me more than anything was the hateful, disdainful way that “nigga” was used. I’ve always maintained that people make much to big a deal of the way black people use the word, but I’ve got to rethink that. It seems that I made a mistake that I punish others for making–ascribing my views to the rest of the world.
Silly me, I thought that folks that used the word with the same frequency as I do were thinking the same way as I did. Yanno, I figured those folks had taken some level of control over the term and were not using it as a way of battering black people. And somehow, I figured I had an idealogue in Aaron McGruder.
Clearly, I do not.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to John Lee about the show. On top of carrying an impressive resume, John is probably the smartest guy I know in the media (along with probably being the funniest). John told me he met McGruder and could feel the self-loathing. In the two times I talked to Aaron, I didn’t feel the same thing. I had some issues with him–which people who know me have heard me complain about ad nauseaum–but I didn’t think he was self-loathing.
But after watching him channel Dr. Martin Luther King for the purpose of calling folks a bunch of niggaz, I have to reconsider that and seriously reconsider the cartoon. Between this and the “nigga moment” premise–one that delineated the difference between black folks and niggaz, something I absolutely refuse to stand for–I might be done with Aaron’s cartoon.
Sorry, but I don’t find laughing at poor black people like that to be funny. Not at all.
But why my trip to Africa? Most know that Pryor stopped calling people “niggers/niggaz” after his trip to Africa. The Boondocks has me considering to do the same thing. It’s not because I’ve changed my personal take on the word. It’s because I really don’t wanna get confused with folks that use the term with that spirit. I will never put myself in a position where someone rational will believe that I have a distaste for black people.
Will I hold to that? I dunno. At this point, though, I’ve gotta give it a thought or two.