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[raging moderate]

32. I cannot say that word all in one piece.

I am descended from Methodist circuit preachers and abolitionists. When I was a little girl, just old enough to play outside in front of the house alone, I soon came in with the joyous news that I had heard a funny new song outside. It was, of course, the old "catch a n--by the toe" song. My mother's and sister's faces fell: "No, that's a horrible song with a horrible bullies' word! You must never say that word again!" they said. "But why not?" I asked. And they promptly sat me down and permanently traumatized me by telling me the (g-rated) history of that word and some of the awful things that had been done by red-faced laughing monsters chanting it. And how somebody hearing me say it might feel all over again the pain he had felt, when the monsters had been doing something to him. As I say, I have never been able to say it in one piece again. And I don't want to be one of the "white" people who do! You don't know the horrible things that are going through the minds, even today, of most "white" people who use that word. It is frequently difficult to swallow food in earshot of them, when they feel unhibited by those pesky "political correctness police." I can sort of understand that African-Americans might be tired of some of the other words and attitudes they encounter among various European-Americans. I can sort of grasp how they might feel that banalizing this word would decrease its power. But I don't feel we can do this just yet. I know I never can.