N word Archives - The Race Card Project

Rural Alaska, six blacks, my family.

January 19, 2024January 19, 2024 AK, Alaska, blacks, Dillingham, Family, jiggaboo, Lydia Taylor, memphis, N word, rural, slur, State Trooper, TN

Lydia Taylor
Memphis, TN

I was born and raised in Alaska. When I was 4, my father got out of the Air Force and accepted a job as a State Trooper in Dillingham, Alaska. He moved from Anchorage to Dillingham first, to start his job as we as find us a place to live. We followed on my 5th birthday, I thought I was being punished. We moved to a small fishing town off the Bristol Bay, where the majority of people there, majority Alaskan Native, had not seen a black person in “real life.” We lived in Dillingham for 8 years and it taught me many things about race relations. My siblings and I were tormented daily at school, called n*****, jiggaboo, blackie, darkie, monkey, ape, pretty much any derogatory racial slur you could use towards a black person. It caused me to hate being black as a kid, it took a lot for me to learn to love me. We left Dillingham in 1993.

Brown girl rejected with red blood

January 30, 2023January 30, 2024 beauty, brown girl, classmates, embrace, first experience, food, God, hair, left out, N word, only, passing, picture day, PTA, red blood, school

Anonymous,
USA.

Grew up as the only little brown girl in class, always having to explain why my hair grew up to the skies when it rained and the humidity took control of my tresses, then drew tightly too my head. Never getting assistance from the PTA moms passing out red and black combs on picture day to make all the yellow-haired girls pretty for their cameo shots for school pictures. Always being left out, last picked, first ignored. Always looking for other under-dogs to befriend, going over to play with them, getting told by parents that lil’ Suzie isn’t allowed to play with n*****s. Me, going home confused because I wasn’t that bad word they said that I did not understand. It was the name my momma gave me and I was Suzie’s friend. I grew up to enter the field of science and eventually write book on embracing the beauty of hair that rises up to praise the Lord and a crown made uniquely to protect my brain and my body from the harsh subsaharan heat, hair that measures the barometric pressure of the wind and responds to shield me from the elements or expands to release energy when needed controlled by a medulla found in brain and tightly coiled hair – uniquely by God.

Chased and called Jap in Detroit.

September 5, 2022September 5, 2022 1956, CA, Detroit, JAP, Japanese-Hawaiian, Joyce Fidler, N word, Toluca Lake, WWII

Joyce Fidler,
Toluca Lake, CA.

In 1956 I was in first grade, my mother was Japanese-Hawaiian, and I knew nothing about WWII.
I didn’t realize my mother was part Japanese, nor did I know why anyone should care.
Years later in high school I failed to grasp why students on my Indianapolis school bus would want to go downtown to, “yell at the N*****.” “Yell what?” I asked. I just never understood racism.

Black-white man; white black man

June 30, 2022June 30, 2022 Black-white, CA, Chicago, Color, experience, Kirl T. Lawson, N word, n*****, Oakland

Kirl T. Lawson,
Oakland, CA.

I have so many tales to share about my experience with my color (or lack of “definitive color recognition”). growing up in Chicago, I was called “a white n*****” by friends at times w/ affection and at times derisively. Initially the appellation hurt my feelings until I took an objective look at myself in the mirror. Years later and moving to San Francisco and working at city hall, a female constituent asking for me but not remembering my name, described me as “he is either a “black white-man” or a “white black-man”. Hearing that relayed, those phases resonated with me in their succinctness. These are the ways that people view/see me. it’s been a blessing and a curse as either can create discomfit for the viewer and then extent to me. Black folk ask me “what ‘is” you” seeking racial confirmation. I tell them “you know what I is” you just want me to verify/affirm it

I wish the voice would stop.

June 23, 2022June 23, 2022 atlanta, black friends, blue collar, father, GA, N word, Racist, the voice

Al,
Atlanta, GA.

I was born 51 years ago. I grew up with a father who would definitely be considered racist today, but was probably just typical blue collar in those days – kind of an Archie Bunker figure. I heard the N word at least a dozen times a week. Fast forward to my adult years. I hate racism. I have black friends, my kids have black friends, they are all welcome in my home and I really don’t think about their race at all. I have gotten past it, except for one thing. When a black person cuts me off on the street, or does something rude, I hear my dad’s voice saying the N word. And I hate it and I hate myself for it. Does it make me racist? I wish the voice would stop.

The fiction of whiteness imperils humanity.

June 21, 2022June 21, 2022 40's, Ancestors, destroy, Eric Garner, fiction, humanity, imperils, label, Michael Brown, N word, rejecting, supremacy, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Walter Scott, whiteness

Evan Sorem,
San Diego, CA.

I am a human being. I have lived nearly all my life in California. My ancestors have lived in California, Illinois, Wyoming, Utah, Tennessee, Virginia, Norway, France, Italy, England, the Netherlands and who knows where else. So, people view me as a “white” person.

In my 40’s, I have learned that there is nothing inherent in me to support the notion that I am a “white” person. So, I am now rejecting the label. I am a person. My children are people. My friend, who I heard called a “n*****” by kids driving by in a truck as we walked to his house, is a person too. The humanity of that friend is constantly in danger because of the perception of the kids in that truck that they are white and he is not. But they are not white people. They are people. As is he.

As was Trayvon Martin. As was Michael Brown. As was Eric Garner. As was Tamir Rice. As was Walter Scott…..

If we cannot act to destroy white supremacy. White supremacy will destroy us.

Black man, white girl kissing; beautifully scared.

March 3, 2022March 3, 2022 black man, classmate, kidding, Myrtle Beach, N word, n*****, SC, scared, Tracey Rae Palmer, White girl

Tracey Rae Palmer,
Myrtle Beach, SC.

I was told never to kiss a n***** or get close to them; they would only rob you or kill you for money. I found myself in collage in 1979 and a black man got an “A” in his class. With arms held wide and incredible excitement, he kissed me and continued to celebrate with the other classmates. I just stood there. It was not different, it was wonderful. I was scared to say anything because he may come back and … then what?

Our Outer Appearance Does Not Matter

December 2, 2021December 2, 2021 appearance, argument, divide, divided, divorce, does not matter, Drew Murray, first experience, hair, history, household, KY, learned behavior, N word, n*****, Owensboro, redneck, school, skin color, stereotype, tolerance

I grew up in a very divided household when it comes down to the words race and racism. When I 7 my parents divorced, I moved in with my mother and she began dating, 9 months rolls around and she is pregnant by her then-boyfriend, now husband. This man was your very stereotypical redneck Kentuckian, him and my father are complete opposites, it was very odd to me that my mother had picked him of all people to be with. Fast forward a bit, and I had the opportunity spend some time with my friend Darius and his brother. We were 8 years old and went to elementary school together. We were a mirror of each other in personality, humor, imagination, you name it, that was us, our only difference was skin color. I brought Darius over to play basketball one day in my backyard, we made it two steps in through the front gate and I hear the front door fly open. “Drew! Get your ass in this house now” says the redneck bear my mother had just married, “yes sir I respond”. This is when I am at a loss for words, I knew Darius and I looked different and that was all, I hadn’t yet experienced racism at this point in my life. Prior to the last 10 or so months, my parents had friends of all shapes, sizes and colors in our home. “We don’t let n*****s in our yard boy!” was the first thing that was said to me, my jaw almost hit the floor, this word, I had never heard this word, but I could immediately feel all the hate that backed it up. A six letter word that threw me completely off guard. “Tell his black ass to get the fuck off my property, and when your ass comes back in, we are gonna have a serious talk, and you are not, I repeat, NOT allowed to talk to that boy ever again, you understand me boy?” and I slowly shook my head in agreeance.
Now I am 25, that once racist man has lost most of his hate for others because he had 2 children of his own and would never deny them anything. But when I was 8 years old, I experienced “race” for the first time in my life. I witnessed something that divides us as people. When I say something, I am not referring to race itself, I am talking about the act of discrimination toward other races. Typing this now, it has dawned on me, there is an ongoing argument as to whether racism is learned, or just part of who we are. This is an experience that tells me one hundred percent that it is learned. Hating a group of people solely based on their outer appearance is quite possibly the most ignorant thing in the history of ignorance. As a child, I was grounded because my best friend didn’t look like me, I was grounded because my best friends skin color was darker than mine, I was grounded because my hair was wavy and brown and his was black and twisted into cornrows. When I was a kid, I was grounded because the man my mother had married, had no tolerance toward someone who was slightly different from himself.

Hillbilly – the wrong kind of white.

June 16, 2021June 16, 2021 hillbilly, N word, n-word, OR, stereotype, Swisshome, TR Kelley, white, white trash

TR Kelley,
Swisshome, OR

“White trash” is a hip cultural joke. “N*****” is “hate speech”. Why?

White People Tears Are My Lipton’s

May 31, 2021May 31, 2021 Alex Miller, america, Arabs, cotton pciker, Croatians, Family, Germans, Hungarians, irish, Lipton, N word, nazi, New York, NY, Poles, racial slur, Racist, reefer, Scandinavian, slaves, slur, smallpox, tears, the Italians, white people, WWII

Alex Miller,
New York, NY.

White people. Some of you, not all… please notice that I said SOME…some of you have been wondering, for a while, “Why am I always called a racist?” “Why do blacks blame me for slavery? My family never owned slaves!” And that sort of gives me pause because: What, did you think you were special? Everyone in America gets it! Do you think you have it worse than anybody else who gets called names or epithets? Cuz I got news for ya Bub… nuh uh.

So, maybe your family didn’t bring Native Americans Small Pox blankets mixed with a side of Christianity. Your ancestors may not have owned slaves, castrated, and lynched them. Or maybe you don’t know anyone who made the Chinese pan for gold or dig trenches until they died on the spot. You probably don’t know anyone who turned away Jewish refugees escaping the Holocaust…or anyone who flooded society with leaflets of caricatures accusing them of being Nazi spies. You may not have even been alive when Reefer Madness instilled in the minds of millions an image of a raving mad Mexican “wetback”. I don’t think you ever interned any Japanese Americans during WWII because “they might be working for the enemy” in barely functioning shacks, while their businesses went into disrepair and got looted. You may, or may not, have made crazy ass Apu from the Simpsons-inspired jokes, with an Apu-inspired voice, to trash and degrade Indians, Sri Lankans, or Bengalis. And I pray to everything you never were a member of the current group of Islamaphobes obsessed with how “terrible every Muslim is” and physically attacked Arabs (who may not have actually been Muslim) just because of how they look and your preconceived notions of how much of a threat they might be.

Relax, my friends, dry your eyes. The Irish, the Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Croatians, Germans, Scandinavians, even Brits, have all been victims of hate and bias in this nation. I think a major difference, in this country, is that those people of European origin, eventually get fully indoctrinated into society purely off the basis of how closely they resemble the “purebred American, the All-American.” But this is how it works.

You may not have done anything, been involved with any racist faction on the planet, hurt a single soul. You may have had immigrant ancestors from European nations who got treated like utter dog shi*; but each time I get online and get called “cotton picker” “n*****” any variation of primate, or get told I’m a part of the “13%” (despite the fact I’ve never committed a crime in my life, let alone a violent one), by a different person, I don’t feel sorry for myself. It just tells me there’s plenty more where that came from. Race is as important now as it’s ever been. And if all you can do is point fingers at others for not making America a better place, if you’re not actively getting out there and helping to change America, then it’s problematic to expect people with less of a resemblance to those who caused so many problems to minority communities, to do more. Stop crying. Start changing.

Utopia is a nonexistent colorblind world

April 4, 2021April 1, 2021 colorblind, N word, n*****, Powhatan, skin, Utopia, V. Anne Spence, VA, white

V. Anne Spence,
Powhatan, VA.

Would I have been called a “N****” if my skin were white”? Growing up in El Barrio and the Bronx in New York City was I called the “N” word by a redheaded transit cop at 12. The last incident occurred in a store in here Virginia. I was in my forties. Maybe now that I’m in my fifties it will just be said under their breath.

You can no longer dehumanize me.

August 10, 2020May 23, 2022 BLM, Canada, first experience, Lynn Keane, N word, target, The Talk

Lynn Keane,
Canada

I live at the intersection of race + gender inequality.
When I was a little girl, my mother’s coworker saw us shopping on a Saturday. My mother lost her job on Monday.
When I was a little older, someone wrote “n****r” on our apartment door. I remember being scared and hurt.
My dad regularly had ‘The Talk’ with my brother. Instructing him to be respectful of police when he was pulled over. The assumption was not if but when he’d get stopped.

When I was with my small children in an elevator, a woman asked” if I liked being their nanny”? She wrongly assumed that because my skin colour was different than my children, they weren’t mine.
Being racialized makes you a target for other’s ignorance and hate. Treated as other or devalued because of your skin colour.

As mixed, black and brown people we absorb other’s assumptions every day. This is our truth. We must seize this moment to end systemic racism and institutionalized aggression towards people of colour in our communities.

This revolution requires that everyone take action. It’s long-past time.
Black Lives Matter

Double standards and mutual racial fragility

July 21, 2020February 14, 2022 All Lives Matter, black lives matter, cracker, hate crime, hillbilly, Lily, N word, passing, slur, UK, white devil, white trash

Lily,
UK

I don’t understand why people on all sides of the racial debate, despite wanting equality, suddenly splutter and get defensive when people criticize another race, even when it is valid. I see white people replying “all lives matter”, because they feel that “black lives matter” is somehow diminishing them. I also see black people in online spaces who get defensive whenever a negative aspect of black culture is highlighted and blame white supremacy as if that negates responsibility and makes expectations of personal agency unreasonable.

Surely, if our goal is to ensure that race – which cannot be changed (yet, waiting on science to make it a choice) – no longer matters, and pursue equality, I think we need to be open about it. I see white people saying that racism doesn’t exist and that black people are “the real racists”, and black people saying that all whites are racist and share sole responsibility for helping black people.

It doesn’t make sense to keep passing the buck back and forth when we already agree on the solution: stop discriminating. I am not advocating for complete “color-blindness”, but rather that we acknowledge what has happened and opt to not perpetuate it. We acknowledge that discrimination exists, and choose consciously to refuse to continue the cycle.

I am a white (MtF) woman, and I wouldn’t want to be called “white trash”, “cracker”, or “white devil”, just as a black person wouldn’t want to be called the N-word, or the C-word, or J-a-B.

The way the media buries white hate crime victims (unless they’re too huge to ignore, like that one disabled guy who got tortured by four racist black girls), makes me feel that my efforts to reject and challenge racism are going unreciprocated. I feel like the onus is always on me when we should be lifting each other up and bonding over the common acknowledgment that being victimized is a horrible experience for any human to experience.

How did we get the idea that understanding that white people can be victims too become an attack against the black community, or somehow implicitly racist? It may not happen as bad, or as often, but I doubt that matters to the actual victim of a hate crime. If I’m being beaten, or robbed, or murdered, am I really going to care that other people are getting it more often?

The buzzword “white fragility” is thrown around a lot, but every time I mention that we can also be victims, people freak out as if I’m trying to steal their thunder or something. There is nothing wrong with adding nuance to a conversation, in my opinion.

From a white teenage girl’s perspective

July 3, 2020July 3, 2020 ancestor, Fortson, GA, ginger, girl, hair, homeless, N word, perspective, skin, slave, slave owners, starbucks, stereotype, teenager, unemployed, Victoria N., White girl

Victoria N.
Fortson, GA

My ancestors came to America just like many others. Just because I am white, does not mean my family “owned” “slaves”. When an African American girl says to me “you’re so lucky to have that hair” or “I would pay a lot for some of your hair”, it makes me mad. Hair or material appearances should not be what you see when you look at someone. It’s about what is on the inside, not the color of one’s hair or skin! I have strawberry-blonde hair so I get called a “ginger” from all races. According to some people, I only have “half a soul”.

Being called a ginger hurts just as much as being called the N word. I like to drink Starbucks so I’m a “Typical white girl’? That term is degrading to teenagers like me. Just because I am white, does not make me privileged. My dad only makes about $30,000 a year. My mother is unemployed and homeless! Being white does not make someone racist or privileged. Do you see colleges or scholarships for “white” people? No, but you see them for African Americans. Also, to the African American boys that get mad when a white girl says she has a preference: For MOST of us, it’s not because you have dark skin, it’s because our mind is not physically attracted to you. Stop calling us racist or our DNA makeup. Our generation only has control of the future, not the past, so get over it.

Can I say N****r around you?

November 8, 2019September 18, 2020 black card, Dylan Givens, first experience, N word, offended, San Francisco, school, white, white kids, white people

Dylan Givens,
San Francisco, CA

Because I was raised in predominantly white schools and have almost-all white friends, people seem to think that I don’t have a right to be offended when other ethnicities use the N-Word (since I “Don’t really have a black card”).

We experience, we teach, we grow.

September 3, 2019February 21, 2021 American, Austin, black kid, civil rights, divided, Eli Russell, experience, Ferguson, first day of school, first experience, grow, heatbreaking, N word, peace, school, shattering, soul, speak Spanish, teach, TX, white father, white mother

Eli Russell,
Austin, TX.

As a writer, these six words are something I’ve said before. I lend it here to hopefully add to the growing conversation, to close the divide in the races, to open racist minds and to unite all Americans, all people across the world in peace. It is up to each generation to take our experiences, teach our children the history and where they come from, so that future generations can learn from our mistakes and do better. We must do these things for a better future for our children and their children. There need never be another Charleston. There need never be another Ferguson. It is imperative to keep the conversation going to keep the past from repeating itself. There’s another 6 words. “History doesn’t have to repeat itself.” It’s so hard for me to watch all the news coverage on these racially divided and chaotic events. Not just because it is so painful, because it is. It’s so profoundly, soul-shatteringly heartbreaking. But it’s hard for me to watch because it’s uncomfortable. As a half Caucasian, half black woman who grew up in rural Texas, living with my white mother and my father out of the picture, “Black” history didn’t exist yet. This was in the 1990’s. There was only one type of history and black people had nothing to do with it after the abolishment of slavery. Or so I thought.

I still remember the first day I met the other black child who started coming to or school. It was like a starring contest. (We weren’t the right color to be friends with the white kids and we couldn’t speak Spanish so we were even shunned by the Hispanic children, who were also discriminated against, but could take solace in the insular nature of their culture and feel better about themselves by excluding me, and now “Tyson”.) We couldn’t believe our eyes. We were no longer alone in that predominantly white school. The same predominantly white school where my 1st grade teacher slapped me across the face and screamed the ‘N’ word at me. The only black history I was taught was passed to me from my Caucasian mother. But she couldn’t give me exact dates, all the battles fight and won on behalf of The Civil Rights Movement. Even if I did think my mother was the smartest person in the world and had all the answers when I was six years old, it turns out she didn’t. This is why it’s so important to me to learn what I should have learned about my heritage and history. I want to add that to what I experience in my life, to teach my children and their children so that future generations don’t have to live through the past repeating itself. They can learn from our mistakes and actively help to grow our society. My partner Scott (who is British and Caucasian) are both very much human rights advocates and activists. We want to teach our children to question everything, to live life with a purpose and to love all of humanity as though they were blood relatives. So six words- “We experience, we teach, we grow.”

I’ve freed myself from being “N*****”

August 5, 2019August 5, 2019 describe, free, freed, impact, Knoxville, Lamar Johnson, N word, TN

Lamar Johnson,
Knoxville, TN.

I used to get so upset when someone used N***** to describe me. I then realized that I got upset because I thought of myself as a N*****. When I chose not to believe I was a nigger, I became free of the word and it no longer has an impact on me.

Free speaking teens, changing relational space?

July 22, 2019July 22, 2019 change, children, CO, empower, Evergreen, free speech, influence, N word, n*****, negative, relational space, Tara Saltzman, teen, teenager, word

Tara Saltzman,
Evergreen, CO.

My teens arguing in favor of de-degrading(?) the word n*****, inspired by conviction that changing the influence of words (no longer receiving the word “n*****” as having negative intent or implication), changes relationships. wondering if they are empowered by the innocence of youth and lack of historic understanding AND regardless able to infuse real change through that space.

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