Kanye West Publicly Ponders Use Of “B***h” And “N***a” Slurs
Kanye West on Sunday took to Twitter to question his (and the hip-hop community’s) use of the slurs “bitch” and “nigga.” (Of course, this comes about a month after West revealed that he wrote the song “Perfect Bitch” about his girlfriend Kim Kardashian.) Over the weekend West began the semantic debate by tweeting “I usually never tweet questions but I struggle with this so here goes… Is the word BITCH acceptable?” What followed was a string of contemplative tweets in which Kanye genuinely struggled with the meaning and usage of the derogatory terms in today’s culture. Read on to see how he dealt with the crisis of conscience.
It seems the impetus for Kanye’s change of heart came from someone questioning his use of “bitch.” In typical Kanye fashion, initially he “was offended by anyone questioning anything in my music.” But after cooling off, he seemingly had an epiphany, realizing that there should be a dialogue about the derogatory terms. (Also, the mere fact that he now accepts that his music is not beyond criticism is a sign of major growth for Kanye as an artist.) The overarching question he examined was whether context can truly make the words more palatable.
To be more specific, is it acceptable for a man to call a woman a bitch even if it’s endearing?
— Kanye West (@kanyewest) September 2, 2012
West then pointed out that “Stevie Wonder never had to use the word bitch to get his point across” before ultimately concluding the following:
Perhaps the words BITCH and NIGGA are now neither positive or negative. They are just potent and it depends on how the are used and by whom?
— Kanye West (@kanyewest) September 2, 2012
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