Randall Kennedy

I like rap.

I'm white.

And I have black friends.

And we listen to rap.

And we're driving in the car.

And we're listening to the song.

We start humming along and singing along.

And my black friends sing along.

And when nigger or nigga comes up, they sing.

And I don't know what to do.

is it wrong for me to sing along?

This happened so often that I'd say about the 10th time I got in such an email, I wrote a form letter because I didn't want to just take up time writing, sort of crafting letter after letter after letter.

So I wrote a form letter.

And basically what I said was, listen, number one, I'm flattered that you're asking me, but

Number one, you should have a conversation with your friend.

Number two, no matter what your friend says, let me put something else for you to consider.

Let's suppose for the sake of discussion that your friend says, oh, doesn't bother me.

I know where you're coming from.

We're just enjoying the music.

I don't think that this is a racist utterance coming out of your mouth.