Yes I did get around to talking with one of the bigger offenders around here who likes to say the N-word a lot. I ranted about this before and nobody has yet taken me up on the taking a pipe upside their heads, so I decided to say something about it.
The guy in question, whom I’ll call O, insisted this was a different circumstance. He wasn’t saying
Which is a load of crap, I responded.
“Yeah, but it’s the context,” O said. In the right context, it’s okay to use the N-word.
“So in the right context,” I said, “it’s okay to say certain words. Does that include the F-word? So if I’m hanging with my buddies, I can call them ‘you crazy
O had to quickly shush me before I said the F-word again. (It’s a word I hardly ever say, but I was going for shock value at that moment.)
He finally turned to the cultural argument. “Where I grew up,” he said, “we could say that word with one another and it meant something other than what you’re thinking.” He pointed out that for this reason only white people complained about the N-word. Which has not been my experience; I have heard many a black teacher shout at her black students about how they’re demeaning themselves whenever they use that word. But two can play that game.
“Where I grew up,” I said, “it never meant anything good. When relatives of mine said it—and I demanded they stop—they weren’t talking about their friends. They were trying to put people down.”
Finally, O just agreed to not say the N-word around me. Which I suppose I’ll have to be okay with.
I tried to leave him with the idea that his language will only wind up offending others inadvertently. But I really don’t think O cared. He was just trying to get me off his back before I went up the chain of authority… where he’d be ordered to cut it out instead of having a peer let him slide a bit.
O isn’t the only one. I'm gonna have to work on the others one at a time. It is, as I’ve said before, sad that a white guy has to do this. But someone has to do this.