
…t I shouldn’t take it personally, but later that night it caused hot, angry tears to sting my eyes. The embarrassment of being incapable of defending myself from verbal or physical assault for fear that it could result in my own death. The knowledge that I had been unwilling to surrender my own personal safety in the face of such bold confrontation. The truth was that I’d never been called a nigger to my face. Up until now, I’d only been angry and hurt in theory at a word my mother and grandmother had often e…