When I was Garde Manger at the Hyatt I had four little black ladies that worked for me. Panola, Geraldine, Georgia, and Pearl. The Salad Ladies. They loved me and we had a blast. I found if I could get them talking in the morning they would work their ass off for me. They used to use that n-word all the time, threw it around like peanuts at the circus. No, they didn’t use it that much. This was 1985. It was not quite like today where you hear and see it a lot. One day I decided I would try to use it. Panola, she was like the leader, she put her knife down, and the other three stopped jabbering. The look on their faces was surprise and hurt. Panola said you are crazy white boy if you think you can use that word. But it was too late. I already figured it out just by the looks on their faces. That's not my word to be able to weigh in on. they went back to working like nothing ever happened but I never tried that again..
I see the question come up now and then. “Why can’t white folks use that word? Black folks use it plenty.” My first reaction is that any white person using that word is going nowhere in a hurry. Its an ugly word with a horrible past. My second reaction is that black folks own that word, bought and paid for. It was inflicted upon them in the most hateful ways imaginable and often accomanied by physical violence. Its called “appropriation” I think, and probably by making it a term of endearment among themselves, they took its power away.
I think the last time I used it was a couple years ago. I had just seen this Denzel movie "Fences", and its full of the n word. It just kind of slipped out, me mimicking Denzel. Denzel Washington. He can say the shit out of nigger, I tell you what. Luckily I was just with a good friend, who looked at me kinda like Panola did that day. It felt...awkward. I got enough racist history without taking that on.
Way back in HS for a Psyche Class I picked a book off a list to read. The title was “Nigger”, by the political activist and comedian Dick Gregory. Written in 1963. It was basically his autobiography. After I read that I read his other two books. Both had a great effect on me. A few months later when I was 17 I heard that Gregory was speaking at UT Arlington. I talked a buddy of mine into going with me.
I may not have been the most enlightened person in the auditorium that night, but I’ll bet I was the only 17 year old.
And thinking about it, it may be that what we see these days with blacks having taken ownership of the word Nigger is due in large part to Dick Gregory.
He said things like if he ever opened a restaurant he would name it Nigger for all the free advertising he would get.
A few times over the years, on Facebook, I have done a series of posts during Black History Month. Historical informative type pieces.
It was mostly in reaction to friends who would say “Why do we have a Black History Month”.
One year I titled all the posts as “Educate Your Ignorant White Ass On Some Black History Month”.
I had more than one person take exception to my title.
I wonder how they would be trying to handle being called something as inflammatory as Nigger?
