–
Many of these people were just children the first time someone used the N-word to harm them.
When I hear people say that racism is dead, I get sick to my stomach. Only white people have the privilege to think that racism in the USA is dead.
Listen to these BuzzFeed employees, just a random selection of people of color, talk about the first time someone used the N-word against them. And then do the work to realize that just because you may not be seeing or feeling the racism doesn’t mean it’s not real.
What’s more, a person doesn’t need to use the N-word to be racist, or to be using racism to hurt others. It is alive and well in many forms.
-Joanna
you seem to be missing my point, or focussing on one small point. Growing up, the only people, the ONLY PEOPLE, i heard using the word, were black people. famous black people, black people of influence, black people getting rich saying it.
tis a strange world we live in
here’s the funny thing though, i’m white, and grew up in rural Australia, and i can remember the first time i heard the N word. It was in a Public Enemy song. My friends and I found rap music when we were around 13 or 14, and that stuff is full of people using the N word to each other, so we did what any self respecting 14 year old did, we started copying our idols, soon enough we were walking around calling each other N this and N that, calling my mum an N word, and why wouldn’t we,… Read more »
To all those, “Hey, but black people use it, so I cust don’t know, golly gee” folks: I am not Black, but I am moreno Latino (the brown kind), and the first time I was called the N word was when I was 5 years old. My hair was slickly straight, my nose narrow and pinched in that German sort of way I got from my mother. It was no respect. It was no kindness, it was no joke, it was no misplaced playfulness. It was meant to other me, to alienate me. And it was used again and again,… Read more »
I guess what i’m saying is that it’s very hard to teach white people not to use the word, when black people are. The key is to bear in mind that black people have been pretty much fooled into taking it on as a term of endearment. There is also the matter of black people who use it as a sort of reclamation effort. Seriously take notice of black people who have removed that word from there vocabulary or are trying to remove it. And ultimately to tether white people’s use of the word to the fact that black people… Read more »
Growing up in New York City, you hear people cursing at each other all the time….as an innocent Asian-American child, I have heard racial slurs (like “ch–k”) aimed at me in school or on a summer camp bus….those words don’t hurt as much anymore, but hearing them in that mean, mocking tone still makes me cringe…