The N Word
Nothing in the world can prepare you for being called a nigger. No matter how much I have studied and espoused the teachings of my favorite political leaders, revolutionaries, radicals and thinkers, when faced with vehement hate and unapologetic ignorance, in that moment I stood frozen, something like anger and confusion whirling in my gut. I had lead rallies, been harassed by small mobs, faced down a line of policeman in full riot gear, been detained and jailed, and participated in acts of civil disobedience where the threat of violence or arrest was always possible. Hell, I’d even made a cop cry once. So I considered myself unafraid to confront oppression wherever it might present its hideous face. But here I was just outside my favorite bar in the neighborhood I called home feeling somehow safe. After all, Wynwood was known for its diversity, its spectrum of colorful characters as vibrant and varied as the art that adorned the buildings. For a moment my guard was down, the night was still teeming with the possibility of adventure, so it hit me like sucker punch the sight of this young, well dressed white man yelling “nigger” to someone behind him. Let me be clear. It was not the pronunciation that we had all become accustomed to due to its abundant use in hip hop culture and our seemingly widespread agreement that changing the “er” to “a” somehow made the word benign. It was not even said in the way oblivious white people would use it in attempts to appear “down” or “colorblind.” He spat the word with a force and daring which suggested he knew full well the weight of its blow.
Stunned, I searched for the party to which he was referring, finding that no one on the street seemed to have been engaging him. It was a bustling Friday night, passerby’s either chose to ignore him or were genuinely impervious. Sensing his tirade was not being taken seriously, he seemed to search for validation or simply an audience. In that moment, his eyes locked on mine, which were no doubt brimming with anger and defiance. Knowing he had found his audience, he says to me as he passed in the opposite direction, “I’ve tried to stick up for you people but you’re all just niggers.” This statement seemed to slightly draw the attention of those in passing, as people took notice, but no one spoke, neither black or white.
“What did you say?,” I asked, not as a question but a dare to repeat it, wondering if his bravado would persist now that people had started glance in our direction. I had begun to tremble with anger, heart pounding in my ears, blood rushing to my face, but shock still had me in its grips.
Unwavering, he turned around to face me and began to walk back in my direction, accepting my challenge. Although he stood only an inch or two taller, he must have felt emboldened by the alcohol and the fact that I was woman. I held my ground, preparing for the chance he would get violent. He approached and I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he got nearer, a clear act of aggression.
“I said you’re a nigger.” His eyes fixed on mine were calm, as if he were simply stating that the sky was blue. He seemed to be settling into this conclusion and becoming more firm in his conviction. It was as if he were reconsidering the handful of black people he knew and had found acceptable, perhaps even called friends, and putting them in their rightful category.
This exchange, growing more tense by the second, happened to catch the attention of two young black men passing on their way to the bar. They were both much taller and more muscular than the guy in front of me, intimidatingly so, which caused him to step backward, giving me space, but still not retreating. One brother cast an annoyed look in the direction of my harasser, shaking his head in a kind of disgust and pity. The other, however, reacted as I had always known Black people to when confronted with that word by someone outside of the race or community- with a righteous black rage.
“What the fuck did you just say?!,” he demanded, repeating my goading, increasing his stride toward where we stood. I could see a wrinkle of fear pass over his face, as he took an instinctive step back. My breath halted in my chest, sure this would end in blood and sirens. And I have little doubt this would have been the outcome if the annoyed friend, still concentrating on their intended destination, did not react quickly, seizing his friend by the arm. As he pulled him away from where the two of us stood, the space between us growing, I heard the friend calmly explain “fuck it, its not worth it, man.” He reluctantly allowed himself to be lead away, but he was still turned in our direction, anger etched in his face. Yet he seemed to agree this was not a battle worth fighting. And with that they disappeared into the bar and I was alone again on a busy street with a taunting racist.
During all of this, I still had not figured out what to say, other than a few choice vulgarities. When he was just inches from my face, inciting a reaction, I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Me, the rabble rouser, fearless leader, gifted orator and self proclaimed freedom fighter was rendered helpless and ashamed. And it wasn’t out of fear of this sad little man, but the real and terrifying reality that if I struck a white man, even in self defense, I could very well end up beaten or dead. I tallied the body count and recalled the names of just the last year of unarmed black and brown men and women who had been unjustly imprisoned or murdered by the very system that was supposed to protect them. As I stared at my persecutor, all I could see were black bodies lying on streets across America. If an unarmed teenage boy could be murdered in cold blood for simply looking suspicious in a middle class neighborhood, then it did not seem far fetched that I could suffer a similar fate if I got into an altercation with a privileged white boy.
In the end I chose the same course of action as the brothers who has previously intervened- I disengaged. As he continued hurling the word nigger into the night air, its lingering affect still stinging despite my thick skin, I finally walked away. But not without stating simply, “You are a sad, pathetic bigot. It really is sad that in 2015 your hateful opinions are so ignorant and antiquated. Its no surprise that you are out alone, as that is how you will likely live and die.” With that I walked away, still feeling a shame I couldn’t shake and an anger I couldn’t share.
I vowed to forget it. I took the newly forming memory and regret, folded it up and pushed it deep down to the place I stored the most hurtful remnants of the past, the ones with the sharpest edges that can still inflict so much pain. It was easiest to accept that I’d had simply encountered one small minded chauvanist in a long line of many and I should be grateful to have walked away unscathed. I knew that 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 endured. Even hearing it in films made me cringe, caused my skin to tighten and tainted my view of humanity. It felt like vinegar on an open wound to be reminded that not so long ago we had legally been considered 3/5 human, chattel property, expendable. But somehow I’d been lulled into a belief that even the most egregious racist in our neighborhood would be socially aware enough to only whisper it behind my back. And yet it took a chance encounter on the street to remind me of the present state of race relations in this country. It was open season on black bodies, as it had been for some time, and the chants of “black lives matter” had not made me feel any safer. Admittedly, my fair skin and articulate speech had shielded me from certain prejudices faced by my darker skinned kin, but this entitled white boy had swiftly reminded me of the prevailing thought of even the most seemingly progressive whites, that we were all just niggers. Whether I was a Rhodes scholar or a welfare mother, I was not quite human in his eyes, in this neighborhood, in this America.
It took days to talk about what happened, even with myself. Only now can I write about it because in some strange twist of fate, my friend shared with me a similar encounter where she had to openly reproach a drunken patron of the bar about his use of “the n word”. The outcome of her story was, however, quite different. While both black and white onlookers stood silently and allowed affront to occur, she stepped in and gave him a verbal lashing capable of putting him in his place. But instead of returning her rebuke with anger, he actually asked to shake her hand. As she recounted the interaction to me with a certain gleam of pride in her eyes one gets when championing a cause that does not directly effect them, the fury I buried came bubbling back to the surface. I was angry that she had been allowed to show her disgust at the word and open contempt for the person using it without having to even consider her own personal safety. I doubt it crossed her mind that if law enforcement were to get involved it could be she that could be faulted. That was perhaps the greatest privilege of existing while white or something closer to it- the presumption of safety and innocence. It seemed that the slogan that “black lives matter”, adopted in the wake of the rising death toll of unarmed black men, was still just a desperate plea. While so many claim that we live in post racial society where race simply isn’t much of a factor, we are still demanding to be considered fully human. While the oblivious masses point to our Black president and tout equality, another mother is burying her son while his murderer is either never charged or fully exonerated. Its almost too much to bear, the weight of worry and insecurity we are forced to carry as if it were our birthright.
Nothing in the world can prepare you for being called a nigger. Nothing will serve as a better alarm clock to wake you from the dream that the world in which we live will ever be rid of the blight of racism, sexism, homophobia and all interlocking oppression. But nothing should ever stop us from trying, as there is no worthier cause than creating a society that we can bequeath the next generation without shame.
