I need help with the N-word.

I really need help putting the n-word into the right context.

Let me begin with what I know.  It's a bad word.  It's derogatory.  It's mean.  It's incendiary. It's a word that I have never used as an insult to someone of any color.  I heard my grandma say it once when I was very small, sometime in the 70s, and it surprises me that I still remember it clearly. In her defense, she never said it again and I heard her, through her words and actions, wrestle with her feelings about those with dark skin after having grown up in a very white and fairly uneducated place.  I don't blame her or hold that over her; she recognized her own bigotry and worked through her feelings to overcome it.  It's a word that people use to put dark-skinned people in a subjugated place. I know what it feels like; I remember the first time I heard someone say they wanted to "Jew down" a price for something.  It gives you an ugly empty feeling in the pit of your stomach and then anger wells up after the initial emotional hit.

I also know that dark-skinned people use the n-word.  I am conflicted about using the term "black people" because they are not black just as I am not white. To me it's like using "darn" instead of "damn" -we all know what you meant to say.  I digress.....

Dark-skinned people use the n-word to address each other and I get it. For blacks, it's an identity or cultural term. It's still ugly, though. I don't call my white friends "crackers" or "Betty Crocker".  Why would dark-skinned people call each other that awful word?  And it's common. I heard it in my elementary and middle school.  Little kids called each other that ALL. THE. TIME.  I heard it in a rap this morning during my workout. How is this okay?  I don't care if it means something different from black to black or not; it's not right.  I told my black students that it is confusing for everyone if they use a disparaging term for each other but then get offended if a white student would use the same word to the same group of students. I told them they have to model respect for their own culture if they wanted others to respect them. Is this wrong?

As a teacher, both in my own home with my own children and with the kids at my school, that we need to model the kind of behavior and language we want children to emulate.  I don't use derogatory terms with children or in front of children.  I just don't (I do catch myself, however, sometimes using derogatory words for bad drivers-oops).  If dark-skinned people do not want anyone else to use "their terms", it can not be a double standard.  It's still an insult to use "Penny Chaser" to a fellow Jew -it's not an appropriate cultural term. It's mean to call a Mexican a "Border Bandit" when said to a friend or in jest. Why do blacks think it's okay to call each other "the n-word" (I didn't even want to type it)? 

Help me understand this.  If you don't want people to use a word, don't use it for yourself. And, call out those who do. That's my opinion and it seems simple to me, so clearly I'm missing something. Sure, my pink-ness is showing, but I think it reflects a larger issue of use of this word in the greater environment.  How can you teach people to respect you and your culture if you yourself use potentially derogatory terms that only you get to interpret?  It is confusing and makes the term ripe for misuse.  We all know that "Penny Chaser" and "Border Bandit" are derogatory and members of those cultures do not use them as a cultural term (I can't vouch for insults), so, we do not use those terms.  At all.  It seems to solve a larger problem if the same guidelines are used for the n-word. Additionally, if you do work to model and teach respect for your own culture, it becomes easy to identify those who are truly racist when they do not respect you or yours.  Words matter.

Editing to add:

After I published this, I decided to clarify that I am NOT blaming dark-skinned people for the cultural mis-appropriation of the n-word.  That is not my intent and I do not blame black culture for this. I want to make that very clear. I am simply trying to understand how to deal with this word and what an appropriate action/reaction should be on my part.

Letha's Story, by Letha Dill. She passed away in 2010.

Compiled and only slightly edited by Letha’s granddaughter in 2020

July 1987

    I was born in Harlem Township, Delaware County, Ohio on December 15, 1922 to Paul and Mae Garrabrant. I’m the first girl in a family of eleven children: 6 boys and five girls. Five boys and five girls are still living; one boy died at the age of 8 month old. My father and mother lived on a farm. My father was a farmer and my mother was a school teacher until she had a classroom of her own children. We were all borned at home. We lived in a large two-story home but we had no modern conveniences such as central heat, electricity or running water. Oh yes we did have running water. We would grab a bucket and run out to the well, fill the bucket and run back. How about that! I’ll never forget one cold day my sister went out to get some water and decided to put her tongue on the pump handle. Well you can guess what happened. It froze fast and she lost a layer of skin which she will never forget. But when you are kids a lot of funny things happen all the time. We had a large turtle given to us and several of us were watching my mother cut it’s head off to dress it. She said “now don’t pick up this head as its teeth will come down and bite you.” Guess what –one curious sister put her finger in its mouth and got bitten as the muscles react for quite a while afterwards. Oh, but the meat was so good being fried and crisp.

    Being on a farm, we had two large work horses which did all the plowing and working the soil as there weren’t any tractors then. We named them Snowball and Nigger (we wouldn’t dare name them that now). I spend a lot of time out in the fields with my dad. In the fall he would cut and shock the corn. I would get tired and sit back against the fodder shock and take a nap. Later in the winter we would hitch the horses up to a mud sled and haul the fodder in to feed the livestock. We had our own milk, butter, buttermilk, and eggs. We had hogs, chickens, geese and horses. I very well remember the gander as I got pinched on you-know-where. We butchered our own meat. We had a big shed insulated with saw dust where we would cut up our own meat. We would can meat, fry sausages, and put in a crock and cover it with fat to preserve. We cured the hams, bacon, make our own sausage and made our own lard. To make lard you diced up the back fat and cook it until it’s brown and then put it through a lard press and the end result is lard and cracklings. This by product is called “open kettled lard.” Oh those cracklings were so good fresh and the rest we would make soap outdoors in a large iron kettle. We would go out and pick blackberries and eat all we wanted first on the bushes. Lord only knows how many bugs we ate but I guess it didn’t hurt anybody as we’re all pretty healthy. Then we filled the kettles to take home to can and make a large cobbler. It takes a lot of food for 10 children and 2 adults. About the same time of year the field corn was tender and sweet and we ate and ate boiled corn, fried corn and corn pancakes and fritters. Of course this was open pollinated corn. We relished it as good ole sweet corn. So you see we lived off he good ole earth a lot of the times.

    We always had a lot of hay to cut and put up in a barn. I used to ride the horse hitched to a rope on the opposite side of the barn that would pull the full hay fork into the hay mow to store it. Of course I like my horses even though I had to stand on the side of the manger to put collar on these large horses when my dad wasn’t there. Of course you have a collar on the horses neck before you put the harness on. It was hard for me because I was small for my age. At that time you have to have the harness on right you can’t hitch them to a singletree to pull your equipment.

    Well it finally came time for me to graduate from high school at the age of 17 on May 19th, 1940. In order to get a job at 17, you had to get a working permit. I got a job at Kilgore’s making war materials here in Westerville. I made gasoline war bombs and hand grenades in the first state and then they were shipped to New Jersey and put the pineapple on (the highly explosive part). They were made at Kilgore’s and later shipped overseas which was the ones they dropped on Hiroshima to help end World War II. We were so proud to think we won the Army & Navy Award for Excellence. The company gave each of us a $50 war bond. Well I met my husband to be in 1940 not long before he got his “greetings” form Uncle Sam to report to Camp Shelby. In 1942 he got discharged and we were married on September 7, 1942. We both worked at Kilgore’s making war material. After 4 years I quit and had my three children. Number 1 son, Lisle Jr, is an agricultural teacher at Jackson, Ohio and married with twin daughters now 17 years old. Our only daughter, Beverly, who has an assistant medical certificate was born 1 ½ years later, then number 3 child, 2nd son, Tom, has an associate degree in accounting. They all graduated from Westerville High School. Well since I was home taking care of my children my niece needed a home so we took her and sent her through school. She is a real estate salesman. Well a few years went by and my oldest granddaughter needed a home so we kept and raise her. She is now past 19 years old and a sophomore at Ohio State. They all graduated from Westerville City Schools.

    So you see, I have had kids around me all my life. We always lived where we had a garden and plenty of space for the children to play and work. We always have a freezer full of food and I still can fruits and vegetables and meat. We have 6 grandchildren: 3 boys and 3 girls ages 19 down to 12 years. They grow up so fast. Well on June 10, 1982 everything came to a standstill when my husband Lisle had cardiac arrest and passed away very suddenly coming from across our drive to the house. We had been married nearly 40 years and had worked, planned, and had a lot of good happy times together. I had planned to retire but those plans changed and I am still working. I have now completed 26 years as a food service worker and trying to plan my retirement. I hope I keep my health and find someone I can share the rest of my life with and enjoy my senior years.