This was posted in todays edition of New York Post (online edition). Sad but very true.

“HEMMED in by holi day crowds, I''d been walking behind an elderly black woman for half a block down Fifth Avenue when we passed a pair of 30-something men in expensive suits talking loudly at the edge of the curb.

"You are playin'' me, nigga!" one of them yelled.

The other shook his head. "I f---ing swear to God!"

The elderly black woman shot them a glance but said nothing and kept walking.

Both of the men were white.

For those who have questioned whether hip hop has made a lasting contribution to American culture, here then is a pointed rebuttal: Through sheer repetition, gangsta rap has made it permissible for well-dressed businessmen to cry "nigga" in public, thus adding to the arsenal of casual obscenities at their disposal.

Indeed, thanks to P. Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Jay Z., Missy Elliot, Lil'' Kim and their ilk, men and women who witnessed first hand Jim Crow segregation, who lived through the Civil Rights era, who can recall the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, men and women who have reached their 60s and 70s and 80s, now get to have the n-word hurled in their faces, without the slightest malice, by young white people.

Quite an accomplishment.

You know what I''m sayin''? “

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