I don't hold shade over this person, despite how it must look with these paragraphs about him, but I'm more just in a flow of changing my opinions about appropriative acts and learning from them rather than attacking people who do it, etc, which ends up alienating people from your message, etc. If we approach racial dialogues from the perspective that we ALL have growing to do, then I think it could be much much more beneficial. How many people of his age and class background in the USA have never made a racist joke in the privacy of their own home? And the ones who haven't, like he says are probably pretty high and mighty about it. Because he's more concerned that today "being accused of racism" is a huge deal, and that that needs to be the focus here. Instead, the only video he makes is one in which he (admittedly) defends someone being accused of racism. However, the joke was again to use a black person as a prop to boost his own prominence through proximity to blackness for the edginess it gives his persona, but then in no way working towards dismantling anti-black attitudes once he's got his platform. Now, that kind of backflipping is frustrating but the way he then engages into a discussion of the need to allow people to grow out of juvenile bigotry is well presented, so I felt like giving him more of a chance and the video was pretty funny especially at the end when I couldn't help but laugh and enjoy it. His response is to dminish the harm of a "joke" and also to stress that since his Okinawan surname "Higa" is pronounced "HEE-ga" not "HIGGA" then anyone who assumes a racist meaning to his name is actually the racist one. but I just watched this more recent video in which he discusses racial issues surrounding Justin Bieber using the n-word in multiple leaked videos from his teen years: Then that word can stay the fuck out of your mouth. If your ancestors chanted for the lynching of our ancestors, and screamed that word at our limp bodies once we'd been killed. Black culture is the most copied and appropriated culture in the world and it's because they are the mother culture, they are many, groups with ancient histories and traditions that even centuries of colonial savagery tearing them from their land and chaining them into boats couldn't erase.ĭon't appropriate a curse word that has never been used to demean you, and then reap the benefits of its gentrification once we reclaim it. Until nbpoc struggling to gain prominence recognise that being non-whyte does not mean they aren't racist, and specifically anti-black. When met with another criticism that his name was an intentional appropriation of rap culture in hopes to gain the same sort of cultural elevation that black celebrities can have in a whyte-dominant media landscape, Ryan responded by trolling and ridiculing it. However, he later revealed that he chose that username because of a desire for people to pronounce his surname correctly. It's argued that he refuses to amend his name to RyanHiga because the controversy of his name fuels his brand, leaving him with no incentive to reflect and grow. Complicit in the normalisation of those harmful two syllables in a country whose racial history is still a very open wound.Īdditionally, Ryan's use of 'niga' in his YouTube username has been criticised as being childish and selfish. And not only that, but encouraging more people to say it through his own publicity.
![nigga you gay meme origin nigga you gay meme origin](http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/925/983/733.jpg)
It would be fine if he would just admit that he thought it was a clever way to kinda say the n-word without technically saying it. However, no such word exists and the closest word 苦さ (niga-sa) means 'bitterness' and is based on the root 苦 (kǔ), putting heavy doubt on this thin veil of a ruse. Records from Higa on the name imply that Niga means "rant" in Japanese. However, it's impossible to know if it was intentional.
![nigga you gay meme origin nigga you gay meme origin](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/78/00/f5/7800f50d3c2b75764df9dc9c8ff8656d--fas-funny-memes.jpg)
|Quora://Why does YouTube user Nigahiga use such a channel name? His last name is "Higa", but what is "Niga"?>įirstly, the insult of denying appropriation is enough to class this as a problem if the act was intentional. |WordHippo://What is the meaning of the Japanese word 苦さ (Niga-sa)?> Happy Slip, Kev Jumba & TonyaTko) Problematic?
![nigga you gay meme origin nigga you gay meme origin](http://m.quickmeme.com/img/bb/bbe64507e13cdd0b566b5618c1c70aa803ed65f50c50895bfe26d0759de43d4e.jpg)
Here in the video below we see him prior to his fame, explaining the meaning of his name, with a pool of other YouTubers whose names and content did not take them so far:
![nigga you gay meme origin nigga you gay meme origin](http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/340/779/19b.jpg)
Regardless of whether Higa intended this, he has clearly seen the benefits of this name. The gut reaction for most people seems to be to question if the "Niga" which is added to Higa's surname for his alias, is meant to be a thinly veiled attempt to stylize himself as a "cool nigg a Ryan Higa - nigahiga" type persona?