What it’s like to write about hate over and over and over
By Cord Jefferson
Illustration by Cun Shi
A few weeks ago, an internet publication reached out to me with a proposition. The name of the publication—a good and smart website I generally enjoy—doesn’t matter for our purposes here, because the interaction I intend to describe is not unique to this specific outlet, nor is it uncommon in the broader world of media.
I was asked, via email, to write about a small news story out of New Hampshire that had begun making waves nationally. A police commissioner in Wolfeboro, a tiny town of about 6,000 people, was overheard in a restaurant calling President Obama a “fucking nigger.” Despite townspeople demanding his resignation, the commissioner remained steadfast, writing in an email to his colleagues, “I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse [sic]. For this, I do not apologize—he meets and exceeds my criteria for such.”
I read the short Associated Press rundown and thought about how the handful of black residents in Wolfeboro must feel knowing that one of their elected officials casually—proudly, even—throws around the word “nigger.” I felt bad for those people and the other people in Wolfeboro, some of whom probably didn’t know they…
