Last April, at the state Capitol, there was a neo-Nazi rally. There were columns written and letters sent in to The State News in protest of the event. There even were hundreds of protesters present at the rally. Neo-Nazis espouse beliefs of being law-abiding, righteous and healthy citizens. What makes their beliefs wrong is the lack of congruency in the validity of how they justify them. Regardless, they still have the right to express their views in a peaceful manner unhindered. Many would argue that neo-Nazi rhetoric is inherently violent. Still, they are not the greatest threat to my reciprocity.

Two summers ago, I worked as a cook in a local Italian restaurant owned by two Italian cousins. One day, a cook, who also was Italian, earnestly asked the owners why there wasn't a Wop salad on the menu. One of them snidely replied, "Because it's called a Wop salad."

About a week later, the dishwasher was playing a CD wherein the rapper often used the word nigger while speaking of committing violent acts against his fellow African Americans. I asked the dishwasher to please change the CD. All of the songs he played contained lyrics about shooting and killing "bitch ass niggers." After a short protest, the dishwasher, who was not African American, reluctantly agreed to switch discs, until one of the owners said: "No. Leave it in. I think it's funny." I only worked there for another two weeks.

Whenever I go to any club or bar that features a disc jockey — I am assaulted with songs that use the word and that advocate treating women like toilets meant only for emptying semen into them. Nowadays, I even hear songs on the radio openly using this word of hate.

It's not the neo-Nazis who are my greatest threat. It is the growing majority of Caucasians who want nothing from me than someone with whom to skip class and smoke down with. It is the growing number of Caucasians who use the word and dare to tell me that since I don't use it, I'm not really a black guy.

DMX, Lil John, Tupac Shakur and those like them have done more to hurt me than Adolf Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan or any neo-Nazi ever has.

What does worry me are those who look like me, but profess a self-hating lifestyle of killing of one another and those who see getting "crunked" as a cornerstone of our culture.

Along with them are the Caucasians who cheer them on — the college students who only refer to African American males as "Bro," "Brother Man" or "Son" and want nothing more from us than being their drunken jesters who amuse them in between their studies. Because as far as they are concerned, the only reason we should be in college is to play sports.

Whenever I see someone sporting a swastika tattoo, I'm not worried. When I hear and see a Caucasian student driving down the street while "bumping" the latest song about African Americans shaking their junk and shooting one another, I am frightened and dismayed. That student has no respect for us and doesn't take us seriously. However, that student will most likely graduate and have a detrimental impact on one of our lives.

If the National Socialist Party or others like it want to live separate from me because they don't want to be impure or corrupted by me, then fine. I'm OK with them staying away from me. However, those who seek to subjugate me — to make a clown out of me and other African Americans — are my greatest threat to reciprocity. Not the neo-Nazis who wish to only have arms length transactions with African Americans. And certainly not Proposal 2.

Whenever I have the misfortune of watching an African American on MTV or BET, I see many that are like Bert Williams — a once-prominent African American performer who set the stage for today's entertainment convention. Persons who look like me and are putting on a minstrel show for an ever-growing, cheering Caucasian audience.

Etienne Fields is an LCC social science junior and MSU alumnus. Reach him at archon_tassadar@hotmail.com.