On the N Word
BY XAVIER PRINCE
Nigga
There, it’s been said. Now, please allow us to run a brief diagnostic. Feel free to write in the blanks if you would find that helpful.
1. How did seeing that word make you feel?
2. For non-Black readers, did you read this word in your head? Was it too abrupt for you to take your proper precautions? Do you ever?
3. Do you believe that the reclamation of a slur is powerful or regressive?
4. What do you know about power? About regression? What about egress? What do you know about egress?
5. Imagine you are locked into a shifting black box with slits wide as an arrowhead. There is one meat pie on the ground shifting around in the dark. There are ten people crammed in this box. You cannot see the pie, but you can smell it. You can hear the tin scraping across the barren floor. After they have slung the arrows do you,
A. Pick them up and use them to poke at your captors?
B. Turn them towards your captured companions?
C. Use the blade to ration the pie into ten different portions?
6. T/F The cultural influence of rap music marks the decline of the west.
7. Which of these is your favorite negro spiritual?
A. Wade in the Water (God is gonna trouble the water)
B. Swing Low Sweet Chariot
C. Runaway (2010)
8. If words weren’t just words, and they actually carried power, about how much power do you think the N word could exert? Feel free to use pounds. However, horsepower may be more appropriate.
9. If your father says, in response to a Snoop Dogg music video on MTV, “I hate when people use that word. How are we supposed to get respect as a community if we use that word that tears each other down?” and if for years your friend says in greeting, “What’s good nigga?” how do you go about splitting the difference?
10. You are in a house, alone on a prairie of tall, dry grass. Flames are encroaching slowly from all around you. Within a case of glass, a fire extinguisher awaits, behind a warning which reads, “Break in case of emergency”. You had a rock set aside for this very moment. Where is that damn rock?
11. If you’re eating breakfast after lift, and a close friend (a white friend) says to you in a quiet voice, “It reminds me of that episode of Boondocks, where the white teacher says, ‘Can a nigga borrow a pencil?’” and you say, “What did you just say?”, and he repeats it, and says—in an even quieter voice, “I only said this to you because I knew you wouldn’t get upset.” (With a shrewd look at the other Black players at the table) Do you:
A. Stand up, tell him not to say that around you, and that you certainly will get upset?
B. Laugh nervously, say nothing, quietly put your fork down (on the plate of food you were not finished eating) and walk away with a sick knot twisting in your stomach?
C. Other:
12. When you tell your friends about this does your other close, white friend say, “I think we should forgive him.” does he say, “You shouldn’t let a word control your entire life.”?
13. If things are looking up (no, higher—high enough that if you look, you might break your neck) will you forget the things down below? If you do not look at the water, will you remember to wade in it? Will you forget God’s troubling?
14. When a player from the opposing team says—without a hint of malice, “Ya’ll some big niggers you know that?” How often do you use the story to get a laugh out of your friends?
15. Has the uncomfortable pit in your stomach that formed when you began reading this essay gone away yet?
16. If, in grade school your peers regarded you as an Oreo (Black on the outside) can you still say it? Should you? If it doesn’t feel comfortable coming out of your lips?
17. If you look at everything with a cup half empty outlook, are you a cynic? Is designating yourself a cynic (in lieu of what you once were) a privilege afforded to you by happenstance? If not by happenstance, then by what?
18. The following is a game of word association. Please write in the blank the first word that comes to mind:
Gruel
Allegory
Manifest
Demonize
We thank you for your participation in this moral exercise. We encourage you not to think of it again. We encourage you to take the page and tear it out and place it on a flame. We encourage you to watch the flame until it burns out as well. We encourage you to follow things to their natural conclusions. We encourage you to sift through the ashes. As ever, we are unsure what it is you will find.
