Here We Go Again

I don't care about Fat Joe (Joseph Antonio Cartagena at birth), a 46-year-ol former rapper whose father is Cuban-American and mother is Puerto Rican. He's a rapper, not a serious individual.

But the 47-year old Marc Lamot Hill is a serious person. He once was named by Ebony magazine as one of the nation's top 30 black leaders under the age of 30 (clever!) and has been a media personality, activist, professor of urban education, and currently co-host of the Joe Budden podcast. He is nothing if not an accomplished individual- well, a few other things, but accomplished.

And so the question: Is this still a thing?

 

Marc Lamont Hill addresses Fat Joe’s recent visit to the Joe Budden Podcast and his claim that he can use the N word due to his proximity to the culture.

“Fat Joe is not black, I disagree with him using the word due to his relation to the culture, I don’t think that’s enough”… pic.twitter.com/q3ZabDLHK1

— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) September 7, 2026

By" this"  I mean  justifying the use of the n-word by blacks while unironically condemning white racism and racists. In the video below, Hill remarks (beginning at 1:36)

I did say, and I do mean this, that if you do this you should be black. If you're going to use the n-word, you should be somebody who could actually be called the name.That's my position. That's my belief. 

Now, Fat Joe is making the claim here that he didn't make before- "I'm the blackest person." No, he is saying that he is black. I am not trying to police anybody's ethnicity. I am not trying to police anybody's racial identity.

A few moments pass before Hill decides to question, or rather "police," his friend's ethnicity or racial identity as he maintains

Fat Joe has love for black people. Fat Joe is not racist. Fat Joe cares about black people. But Fat Joe is not black. I have no issue with Fat Joe's relationship to the black community but Fat Joe is not black. Fat Joe was basically saying "I grew up around black people, I've grown up in hip-hop,I'm ensconced in the culture. I am a part of the culture.

I agree with all of that. But Fat Joe is not black. So while I love Fat Joe and I admire Fat Joe and I appreciate Fat Joe, I don't share his position that he can use the n-word by virtue of his proximity to the culture or his love for the cultrue, I don't think that's enough.

It would be easy to condemn all others while giving his friend a pass. So Hill deserves credit for not doing that. 

But not for anything else.  In response to the professor's comments, one wise and apparently black tweeter notes (though I don't know if the last statement is accurate)

The n-word derives from the most negative and degrading system of oppression known to human kind. And before slavery here in America, people of color, no matter what part of the world they were from did not call themselves or each other the n-word. I find it embarrassing and repulsive that this guy, Mr. Hill is telling the world community that it is ok to go ahead and identify yourself with degradation, lowliness, illiteracy, poverty, and everything else that is wrong with the use of this word and its ugliness.

Even more disheartening is the fact that people will hear and agree with this foolish endorsement. If you are going to be okay with people of color saying it you ought not be offended when non colored people are saying it. The word is what it is no matter who is saying. I have long ago dispensed with this notion that the word is a term of endearment, IT IS NOT. It is as offensive from people of color as it is from those who are not. This statement by Mr. Hill is miseducation of people of color. My children do not use the word and at least in my presence are forbidden from using it because they should never associate themselves or any other person of color with this word.

We have to do better. I do not know one civil rights leader of seriousness or a true scholar in history on the subject of race who would lend an ear or credibility to this ridiculous endorsement.

It should be obvious that if black people can justifiably use a term- which they can't- then all others should be able to do so. A black person, who is one most likely offended, by the term, cannot use the n-word without giving it his or her de fact endorsement.

If they could do so, accuracy would demand that we make a judgement as to an individual's blackness. Hill recognizes that Cartagena, no matter the cultural milieu in which he chose to move, is Latino. What then of an individual who is racially mixed, black on the side of one parent and whie on the other? Or what if the latter parent is racially Laino, Asian-American, or of tribal background?

Generally, those individuals have credibly been able to claim that they are black: think Kamala Harris or Barack Obama.  However, Barack Obama, for one, was not raised in a culture Hill or anyone else would recognize as being classically African-American. Nor have been most blacks who were born in Africa or whose parents were born in Africa. They- along with individuals from the Caribbean- experienced what is an immigrant culture. Yet, "black".

So there is one simple and fair resolution to this conundrum.  Another Xer- presumably white, but not clearly so- tweets

Maybe we should be having a completely different conversation altogether. Name another group that keeps one of the most degrading slurs used against them in everyday rotation, then spends time arguing over who else is allowed to say it. Some things don’t have to be carried forever just because they became part of the culture. We can decide we’re done and move on.

Let’s just all stop saying it.

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