From the ‘Bad Nigger’ to the ‘Good Nigga’: an unintended legacy of the Black Power movement

Abstract

The Black Power movement based the authenticity of Blackness on the position of the oppressed class, or what Malcolm X termed the Field Negro. This article examines the pitfalls of locating authenticity solely with the Black poor. The Black Panther Party aimed to attract as its members the lumpenproletariat, who would not back down from the struggle. This embrace of the ‘Bad Nigger’, a feature since enslavement, impacted on the party but also on the legacy of the movement. The strength to resist authority was seen as central but, in the absence of radical politics, the position has been taken over by a nihilistic outlook embodied in the emergence of the identity ‘Nigga’. By examining conscious Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap it is argued that this identity helps to keep the community in check. Due to lumpen authenticity, however, the ‘Good Nigga’ is shielded from the accusation of ‘tomming’ and it is therefore necessary to rework a political definition of authenticity necessary to mobilise a new generation for resistance. This article necessarily uses the controversial N-word in different forms to explicate a political process and the way the term itself has been culturally embraced.