Woman Wanting To Sing N-Word While Listening to Rap Sparks Fierce Debate

A woman defending her right to say the n-word while singing the lyrics to rap songs on TikTok sparked a fierce debate on the social media platform over whether it's ever okay to use the racial slur.

The woman, who goes under the name of Tiffany Yu on TikTok, responded to users telling her to stop using the racial slur, claiming that it was always "non-Black liberal people" who get the most offended by people using the n-word, while she said that Black people didn't care so much.

"Most Black people that I've seen in real life or on the internet don't give a f*** if you say the n-word to their songs, but somehow non-Black liberal people make it such a big deal," she said in a video. "Like Black people themselves aren't offended, why are you getting offended? It's not your world, it's not your culture, it's not your music."

Her video contains the hashtags "antiwoke," "conservative," "conservativetok," and "Republican."

She ultimately said that what "p*****" her off was "liberals who think they can determine whether or not something is offensive when it's not their culture." She then made an example of Asian people not being offended by what some called an episode of cultural appropriation.

In truth, the TikToker is wrong in her assertion. A great number of Black people have complained about the widespread use of the racial slur by non-Black people singing rap songs, from the average social media user to people as famous as rapper Kendrick Lamar and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates.

In an event in Illinois in 2017, Coates said that "the experience of being a hip-hop fan and not being able to use the word 'n*****' is actually very, very insightful."

"It will give you just a little peek into the world of what it means to be Black," he continued, as reported by VOX. "Because to be Black is to walk through the world and watch people doing things that you cannot do, that you can't join in and do. So I think there's actually a lot to be learned from refraining."

At one of his shows in 2018, Lamar asked a white fan in Alabama to "bleep one single word" and stop using the racial slur.

Yu's video is filled with comments from Black people saying they are offended by her use of the racial slur, and commenting how bad it was that she was making her case to use it on Juneteenth. Others defended her, asking why non-Black people were offended when it had "nothing to do" with them.

The n-word is deeply rooted in African-American history, and though it's still considered a racial slur, it has been widely adopted by Black rappers in music to represent identity and survival, without derogation, as explained by Darin Flynn, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Calgary, Canada, in an article on The Conversation. Flynn argues that the n-word should never been used by non-Black people.

The TikToker describes herself as "politically incorrect" and the number one fan of Kanye West, now known as Ye, who was recently at the center of a major controversy for making antisemitic comments, spreading conspiracy theories and wearing a T-shirt that said "White Lives Matter."

The woman said she would never say it in real life but she doesn't find it offensive to say it in a song—claiming she has the right to have an opinion. In a later message to "the haters" on TikTok, Yu said she didn't value the opinion of people arguing with her if they had a pride flag or "they pronouns" in their bios "because I don't take you seriously."

Yu received a number of insults containing racial slurs targeted at Asian people from people angered by her defense of using the n-word in lip-syncing rap songs.

In a comment to Newsweek, Yu said that she did not intend to generalize her personal experience regarding how Black individuals respond to non-Black individuals saying the n-word to a song. "I acknowledge that some Black people do take offense, and it was never my intention to downplay the offense they feel," she said.

Update 6/29/23, 4 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include a comment from Tiffany Yu.