The Day I Learned The ’n’ Word

Once I was 7-years-old … “Go [insert expletive] yourself, you Nigger!” These were the directions so boldly expressed by a young, drunk, disheveled White man in 1970s California. Yeah, I know. You’re thinking to yourself, “… 1970s California? I thought that was were all the long-haired, marijuana smoking, shoeless, freaky people, better known as hippies, prospered?” Looking back on everything history has taught us, I’m thinking the same, however, that’s where I first learned the n-word.

I knew little, if anything, about racism until that one day walking with my father and brother along the streets of Long Beach, California. I remember thinking to myself, “now that didn’t sound too positive.” What did the word mean? I knew it didn’t sound too pleasant, positive or hippie-ish, but we didn’t break our stride and kept on walking. I never heard that word again until sitting in a movie theater watching the movie Roots back in 1977. That’s the day all you know what broke out in my mind and thus my lifelong battle with the hateful word that begins with an ‘n’.

Watching Kunta get whipped over and over again while massah screeched, “Nigger … nigger … nigger!” left a branded-like imprint in my mind. The hate, the anger, the disgust, the distain, the, let’s call it what it really is … fear the word exudes when spewed from the mouths of those who don’t rightly like the coloreds is, for the lack of a better word, sad.

My distain for the word, which I have said at the most six times my entire life, has accompanied me since before Kunta was asked repeatedly by massah, “What’s your name, boy?!” To which he responded, “Kunta Kinte” each and every time when he could have simply said, “Toby,” the name given to him by his owners. By doing so, the beatings by massah would have stopped, but Kunta refused to give up and give in. His pride was worth more.

That was the day I first learned the n-word. It was also the day I learned what pride and holding on to your principles meant. And today, although used by every race, ethnicity, culture, etc. I refuse to use the n-word. Nothing anyone says in defense of the use of the word is justifiable enough for me. Be it a hippie, preppy, politician, police officer, Klansman, lady at the grocery store, mother with three children, or young African Americans, there is nothing that justifies the use of the n-word. The word defines one thing … hatred.