Haley Augustus,
Marrero, LA
p>Growing up as a black girl in Louisiana, I always had a disconnect with the N-word, especially the “grammatically correct” way to say it and if it was actually a “bad word” or just a word that shouldn’t be said by certain people but could be said by others. It wasn’t until my transition from elementary to middle school that I truly started to understand its implications and how, between black folk, it’s a matter of greeting, but in the mouths of others, it could be used as an insult, even if it was just a non-black singing along to it in a song. I was once argued against by my white peers as they said that the word didn’t count as a slur because it wasn’t being said with an”-er” at the end. After going back and forth with them on the matter, I realised there was no use trying to change their minds about the matter, especially because I knew at that point it wasn’t genuine ignorance, but willful ignorance. They didn’t want to learn better or listen to me, they wanted to be right and feel justified for being able to say something they feel isn’t fair they can’t say. It’s especially funny because they’re the same ones who’d gasp aloud if I called them “cracker.”
Dillard University – Haley Augustus
