Wayans wants 'nigga'...

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 2:27 PM on February 23, 2006.

Damon Wayans is trying to trademark the word Nigga "for a clothing line and retail store," according to Wired via Scott Thill.

Despite his fame as the creator of In Living Color and the star of a number of films, including Spike Lee's Bamboozled, Wayans is running into some problems. Which can't be all that surprising given the volatility surrounding this word in all its variations.

Trademark examiner Kelly Boulton rejected the registration dated Dec. 22, citing a law that prohibits marks that are "immoral or scandalous."

And that was the second time.

In an interview in the documentary Tupac: Resurrection, Tupac Shakur explains, "Niggers was the ones on the rope, hanging off the thing; Niggas is the ones with gold ropes, hanging out at clubs."

Thill writes:

"While this may shock those well-meaning whites that have spent about as much time around black people as they have listening to Ol' Dirty Bastard [a nice ODB piece for novices here], it's not much of a surprise to a black community that has been mining the explosive word for all it's worth."

"Nigger" of course is the de facto derogatory term employed by racist pricks while "Nigga" is the entertainment-approved derivation used by everyone else on earth, white, black or otherwise, to describe anyone appropriating black culture for their own needs. I once had a white thug from Oakland call me his "nigga" on the pickup hoops court in Berkeley to the total approval of his homies, all of whom were black. So yes, it's transferable. But enough to trademark? We'll see.

Keon Rhodan, who's already selling un-trademarked shirts from his car shares this anecdote: "I was in the mall with one of the shirts on, and an old lady said, 'Where did you get that shirt from?'... She followed me to the car and bought five shirts for her grandchildren." (Morphizm)

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Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.