Courtesy of The Frisky
We were walking down the street when Colin asked me if I’d ever feel comfortable saying that word. Colin — 24, biracial in the way that is still largely read as black — and me, a Jewish but let’s be serious, white, girl on the edge of 30; and Colin wanting to know whether I, with my intelligent, progressive world view, would ever say that one word that white people are not allowed to say.
I paused before responding. “Well,” I said finally, “on the one hand, I think that words on their own are completely meaningless, and only ‘offensive’ because we, as a society, imbue them with meaning and power. On the other hand, I understand the painful history behind that word, and I don’t think that arguing for my supposed right to be able to say it is a battle worth fighting.”
“Have you ever said it?” he asked.
I had. Years before, as a younger and more naive me working at an after school program serving low-income (and predominantly Black and Latino) high school students, I’d said it during a class. I forget the point I’d been trying to make; but I remember assuming the affect of one of my students and saying that word, though, of course, with a soft a at the end. The stunned, uncomfortable silence that resulted was enough to deter me from ever saying it again.
“Yeah,” I said. “And I didn’t feel good about it.”
Maybe a few weeks later I was in bed with a Jamaican man. He was the kind of big that makes people get out of your way as you move through the world, and the kind of rich and famous that opens doors for you wherever you go. In the midst of sex, he asked me to say that word — he instructed me to say it.
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