Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word
-
0:01 - 0:03The minute she said it,
-
0:03 - 0:06the temperature in my classroom dropped.
-
0:07 - 0:11My students are usually
laser-focused on me, -
0:11 - 0:14but they shifted in their seats
and looked away. -
0:15 - 0:17I'm a black woman
-
0:17 - 0:21who teaches the histories
of race and US slavery. -
0:22 - 0:26I'm aware that my social identity
is always on display. -
0:26 - 0:28And my students are vulnerable too,
-
0:28 - 0:29so I'm careful.
-
0:30 - 0:33I try to anticipate
what part of my lesson might go wrong. -
0:34 - 0:35But honestly,
-
0:35 - 0:38I didn't even see this one coming.
-
0:38 - 0:41None of my years of graduate school
prepared me for what to do -
0:41 - 0:43when the N-word entered my classroom.
-
0:44 - 0:46I was in my first year of teaching
-
0:46 - 0:49when the student said
the N-word in my class. -
0:50 - 0:52She was not calling anyone a name.
-
0:53 - 0:55She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
-
0:56 - 0:58She came to class with her readings done,
-
0:58 - 1:00she sat in the front row
-
1:00 - 1:02and she was always on my team.
-
1:04 - 1:05When she said it,
-
1:05 - 1:07she was actually making a point
about my lecture, -
1:07 - 1:12by quoting a line from a 1970s
movie, a comedy, -
1:12 - 1:13that had two racist slurs.
-
1:14 - 1:16One for people of Chinese descent
-
1:16 - 1:18and the other the N-word.
-
1:19 - 1:23As soon as she said it,
I held up my hands, said, "Whoa, whoa." -
1:23 - 1:24But she assured me,
-
1:24 - 1:27"It's a joke from 'Blazing Saddles,'"
-
1:27 - 1:29and then she repeated it.
-
1:30 - 1:32This all happened 10 years ago,
-
1:32 - 1:35and how I handled it
haunted me for a long time. -
1:36 - 1:39It wasn't the first time
I thought about the word -
1:39 - 1:40in an academic setting.
-
1:40 - 1:43I'm a professor of US history,
-
1:43 - 1:46it's in a lot
of the documents that I teach. -
1:46 - 1:47So I had to make a choice.
-
1:49 - 1:50After consulting with someone I trusted,
-
1:50 - 1:52I decided to never say it.
-
1:52 - 1:54Not even to quote it.
-
1:54 - 1:58But instead to use
the euphemistic phrase, "the N-word." -
1:59 - 2:02Even this decision was complicated.
-
2:02 - 2:04I didn't have tenure yet,
-
2:04 - 2:06and I worried that senior colleagues
-
2:06 - 2:10would think that by using the phrase
I wasn't a serious scholar. -
2:11 - 2:14But saying the actual word
still felt worse. -
2:15 - 2:19The incident in my classroom forced me
to publicly reckon with the word. -
2:20 - 2:23The history, the violence,
-
2:23 - 2:24but also --
-
2:25 - 2:30The history, the violence,
but also any time it was hurled at me, -
2:30 - 2:32spoken casually in front of me,
-
2:32 - 2:35any time it rested on the tip
of someone's tongue, -
2:35 - 2:38it all came flooding up in that moment,
-
2:38 - 2:40right in front of my students.
-
2:40 - 2:42And I had no idea what to do.
-
2:44 - 2:49So I've come to call stories like mine
points of encounter. -
2:50 - 2:55A point of encounter describes the moment
you came face-to-face with the N-word. -
2:56 - 3:00If you've even been stumped
or provoked by the word, -
3:00 - 3:03whether as the result
of an awkward social situation, -
3:03 - 3:06an uncomfortable academic conversation,
-
3:06 - 3:08something you heard in pop culture,
-
3:08 - 3:11or if you've been called the slur,
-
3:11 - 3:13or witnessed someone
getting called the slur, -
3:13 - 3:16you have experienced a point of encounter.
-
3:16 - 3:19And depending on who you are
and how that moment goes down, -
3:19 - 3:22you might have a range of responses.
-
3:22 - 3:24Could throw you off a little bit,
-
3:24 - 3:27or it could be incredibly
painful and humiliating. -
3:28 - 3:32I've had lots of these
points of encounter in my life, -
3:32 - 3:34but one thing is true.
-
3:34 - 3:37There's not a lot of space
to talk about them. -
3:40 - 3:44That day in my classroom
was pretty much like all of those times -
3:44 - 3:47I had an uninvited run-in with the N-word.
-
3:47 - 3:48I froze.
-
3:49 - 3:51Because the N-word is hard to talk about.
-
3:53 - 3:56Part of the reason the N-word
is so hard to talk about, -
3:56 - 3:59it's usually only discussed in one way,
-
3:59 - 4:02as a figure of speech,
we hear this all the time, right? -
4:02 - 4:04It's just a word.
-
4:04 - 4:07The burning question that cycles
through social media -
4:07 - 4:09is who can and cannot say it.
-
4:11 - 4:15Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates
does a groundbreaking job -
4:15 - 4:17of defending the African American
use of the word. -
4:17 - 4:20On the other hand, Wendy Kaminer,
-
4:20 - 4:22a white freedom of speech advocate,
-
4:22 - 4:24argues that if we don't all
just come and say it, -
4:24 - 4:26we give the word power.
-
4:26 - 4:28And a lot of people feel that way.
-
4:29 - 4:31The Pew Center recently
entered the debate. -
4:32 - 4:37In a survey called "Race in America 2019,"
-
4:37 - 4:40researchers asked US adults
if they thought is was OK -
4:40 - 4:43for a white person to say the N-word.
-
4:43 - 4:47Seventy percent of all
adults surveyed said "never." -
4:48 - 4:50And these debates are important.
-
4:51 - 4:53But they really obscure something else.
-
4:53 - 4:57They keep us from getting underneath
to the real conversation. -
4:58 - 5:00Which is that the N-word
is not just a word. -
5:01 - 5:06It's not neatly contained
in a racist past, -
5:06 - 5:08a relic of slavery.
-
5:09 - 5:16Fundamentally, the N-word
is an idea disguised as a word: -
5:16 - 5:19that black people are intellectually,
-
5:19 - 5:20biologically
-
5:20 - 5:24and immutably inferior to white people.
-
5:25 - 5:29And -- and I think
this is the most important part -- -
5:29 - 5:33that that inferiority means
that the injustice we suffer -
5:33 - 5:34and inequality we endure
-
5:34 - 5:36is essentially our own fault.
-
5:39 - 5:43So, yes, it is ...
-
5:49 - 5:52Speaking of the word only as racist spew
-
5:52 - 5:56or as an obscenity in hip hop music
-
5:56 - 5:59makes it sounds as if it's a disease
-
5:59 - 6:01located in the American vocal cords
-
6:01 - 6:03that can be snipped right out.
-
6:03 - 6:06It's not, and it can't.
-
6:07 - 6:09And I learned this
from talking to my students. -
6:10 - 6:13So next time class met,
-
6:13 - 6:14I apologized,
-
6:14 - 6:17and I made an announcement.
-
6:17 - 6:19I would have a new policy.
-
6:20 - 6:24Students would see the word
in my PowerPoints, -
6:24 - 6:27in film, in essays they read,
-
6:27 - 6:32but we would never ever
say the word out loud in class. -
6:33 - 6:35Nobody ever said it again.
-
6:35 - 6:37But they didn't learn much either.
-
6:38 - 6:40Afterwards, what bothered me most
-
6:40 - 6:42was that I didn't even explain to students
-
6:42 - 6:47why, of all the vile, problematic words
in American English, -
6:47 - 6:51why this particular word
had its own buffer, -
6:51 - 6:54the surrogate phrase "the N-word."
-
6:54 - 6:56Most of my students,
-
6:56 - 7:00many of them born
in the late 1990s and afterwards, -
7:00 - 7:03didn't even know
that the phrase "the N-word" -
7:03 - 7:06is a relatively new invention
in American English. -
7:06 - 7:09When I was growing up, it didn't exist.
-
7:10 - 7:14But in the late 1980s,
-
7:14 - 7:18black college students,
writers, intellectuals, -
7:18 - 7:23more and more started to talk about
racist attacks against them. -
7:25 - 7:28But increasingly,
when they told these stories, -
7:28 - 7:31they stopped using the word.
-
7:32 - 7:34Instead, they reduced it to the initial N
-
7:34 - 7:36and called it "the N-word."
-
7:37 - 7:39They felt that every time
the word was uttered -
7:39 - 7:43it opened up old wounds,
so they refused to say it. -
7:43 - 7:47They knew their listeners would hear
the actual word in their heads. -
7:47 - 7:49That wasn't the point.
-
7:49 - 7:53The point was they didn't want
to put the word in their own mouths -
7:53 - 7:54or into the air.
-
7:55 - 7:57By doing this,
-
7:57 - 8:00they made an entire nation
start to second-guess themselves -
8:00 - 8:01about saying it.
-
8:03 - 8:07This was such a radical move
-
8:07 - 8:09that people are still mad about it.
-
8:11 - 8:15Critics accuse those of us
who use the phrase "the N-word," -
8:16 - 8:18or people who become outraged,
-
8:18 - 8:20you know, just because the word is said,
-
8:20 - 8:22of being overprincipled,
-
8:22 - 8:24politically correct
-
8:24 - 8:27or, as I just read a couple of weeks ago
in The New York Times, -
8:27 - 8:28"insufferably woke."
-
8:29 - 8:30Right?
-
8:30 - 8:33So I bought into this a little bit too,
-
8:33 - 8:37which is why the next time
I taught the course -
8:37 - 8:40I proposed a freedom of speech debate.
-
8:41 - 8:46The N-word in academic spaces,
for or against? -
8:47 - 8:50I was certain students would be eager
-
8:50 - 8:53to debate who gets to say it
and who doesn't. -
8:54 - 8:55But they weren't.
-
8:57 - 8:58Instead ...
-
9:00 - 9:03my students started confessing.
-
9:05 - 9:09A white student from New Jersey
talked about standing by -
9:09 - 9:12as a black kid at her school
got bullied by this word. -
9:12 - 9:15She did nothing and years later
still carried the guilt. -
9:17 - 9:19Another from Connecticut
-
9:20 - 9:22talked about the pain of severing
-
9:22 - 9:25a very close relationship
with a family member, -
9:25 - 9:29because that family member
refused to stop saying the word. -
9:31 - 9:36One of the most memorable stories
came from a very quiet black student -
9:36 - 9:37from South Carolina.
-
9:37 - 9:39She didn't understand all the fuss.
-
9:40 - 9:43She said everyone
at her school said the word. -
9:44 - 9:48She wasn't talking about kids
calling each other names in the hall. -
9:49 - 9:53She explained that at her school
-
9:53 - 9:55when teachers and administrators
-
9:55 - 9:59became frustrated
with an African American student, -
9:59 - 10:02they called that student
the actual N-word. -
10:03 - 10:06She said it didn't bother her at all.
-
10:06 - 10:08But then a couple of days later,
-
10:08 - 10:12she came to visit me
in my office hours and wept. -
10:14 - 10:15She thought she was immune.
-
10:16 - 10:18She realized that she wasn't.
-
10:20 - 10:22Over the last 10 years,
-
10:22 - 10:26I have literally heard hundreds
of these stories -
10:26 - 10:29from all kinds of people from all ages.
-
10:29 - 10:33People in their 50s remembering stories
from the second grade -
10:33 - 10:34and when they were six,
-
10:34 - 10:38either calling people the word
or being called the word, -
10:38 - 10:43but carrying that all these years
around this word, you know. -
10:43 - 10:48And as I listened to people
talk about their points of encounter, -
10:48 - 10:52the pattern that emerged for me
as a teacher that I found most upsetting -
10:52 - 10:55is the single most fraught site
-
10:55 - 10:57for these points of encounter
-
10:57 - 10:59is the classroom.
-
11:00 - 11:05Most US kids are going to meet
the N-word in class. -
11:06 - 11:10One of the most assigned books
in US high schools -
11:10 - 11:12is Mark Twain’s "The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn" -
11:12 - 11:16in which the word appears over 200 times.
-
11:16 - 11:19And this isn't an indictment
of "Huck Finn." -
11:19 - 11:23The word is in lots
of US literature and history. -
11:23 - 11:26It's all over African
American literature. -
11:26 - 11:29Yet I hear from students
-
11:29 - 11:33that when the word is said during a lesson
-
11:33 - 11:36without discussion and context,
-
11:36 - 11:40it poisons the entire
classroom environment. -
11:41 - 11:45The trust between student
and teacher is broken. -
11:47 - 11:50Even so, many teachers,
-
11:51 - 11:53often with the very best of intentions,
-
11:53 - 11:55still say the N-word in class.
-
11:57 - 12:02They want to show and emphasize
the horrors of US racism, -
12:02 - 12:05so they rely on it for shock value.
-
12:06 - 12:09Invoking it brings into stark relief
-
12:09 - 12:12the ugliness of our nation's past.
-
12:12 - 12:14But they forget
-
12:14 - 12:18the ideas are alive and well
in our cultural fabric. -
12:25 - 12:31The six-letter word is like a capsule
of accumulated hurt. -
12:33 - 12:35Every time it is said, every time,
-
12:35 - 12:39it releases into the atmosphere
the hateful notion -
12:39 - 12:42that black people are less.
-
12:44 - 12:45My black students tell me
-
12:45 - 12:48that when the word is quoted
or spoken in class, -
12:48 - 12:52they feel like a giant spotlight
is shining on them. -
12:53 - 12:54One of my students told me
-
12:54 - 12:57that his classmates
were like bobbleheads, -
12:57 - 12:59turning to gauge his reaction.
-
13:01 - 13:04A white student told me
that in the eighth grade, -
13:04 - 13:08when they were learning
"To Kill a Mockingbird" -
13:09 - 13:10and reading it out loud in class,
-
13:10 - 13:13the student was stressed out
-
13:13 - 13:16at the idea of having to read the word,
-
13:16 - 13:19which the teacher insisted
all students do, -
13:19 - 13:23that the student ended up
spending most of the unit -
13:23 - 13:25hiding out in the bathroom.
-
13:26 - 13:27This is serious.
-
13:27 - 13:30Students across the country
-
13:30 - 13:33talk about switching majors
and dropping classes -
13:33 - 13:36because of poor teaching
around the N-word. -
13:36 - 13:40The issue of faculty
carelessly speaking the word -
13:40 - 13:43has reached such a fevered pitch,
-
13:43 - 13:47it's led to protests at Princeton, Emory,
-
13:47 - 13:48The New School,
-
13:48 - 13:51Smith College, where I teach,
-
13:51 - 13:52and Williams College,
-
13:52 - 13:58where just recently students have
boycotted the entire English Department -
13:58 - 14:01over it and other issues.
-
14:02 - 14:04And these were just the cases
that make the news. -
14:05 - 14:07This is a crisis.
-
14:07 - 14:09And while student reaction
-
14:09 - 14:12looks like an attack on freedom of speech,
-
14:12 - 14:15I promise this is an issue of teaching.
-
14:16 - 14:21My students are not afraid
of materials that have the N-word in it. -
14:21 - 14:23They want to learn about James Baldwin
-
14:24 - 14:25and William Faulkner
-
14:25 - 14:27and about the civil rights movement.
-
14:29 - 14:33In fact, their stories show
-
14:33 - 14:38that this word is a central feature
of their lives as young people -
14:38 - 14:39in the United States.
-
14:41 - 14:42It's in the music they love.
-
14:43 - 14:45And in the popular culture they emulate,
-
14:45 - 14:47the comedy they watch,
-
14:47 - 14:50it's in TV and movies
-
14:50 - 14:52and memorialized in museums.
-
14:53 - 14:54They hear it in locker rooms,
-
14:55 - 14:56on Instagram,
-
14:56 - 14:58in the hallways at school,
-
14:58 - 15:01in the chat rooms
of the video games they play. -
15:01 - 15:04It is all over the world they navigate.
-
15:04 - 15:06But they don't know how to think about it
-
15:06 - 15:09or even really what the word means.
-
15:10 - 15:13I didn't even really understand
what the word meant -
15:13 - 15:14until I did some research.
-
15:15 - 15:17I was astonished to learn
-
15:17 - 15:21that black people first incorporated
the N-word into the vocabulary -
15:21 - 15:23as political protest,
-
15:23 - 15:26not in the 1970s or 1980s
-
15:26 - 15:29but as far back as the 1770s.
-
15:30 - 15:31And I wish I had more time to talk
-
15:31 - 15:36about the long, subversive history
of the black use of the N-word. -
15:37 - 15:39But I will say this:
-
15:39 - 15:42Many times, my students
will come up to me and say, -
15:42 - 15:45"I understand the virulent roots
of this word, it's slavery." -
15:47 - 15:49They are only partially right.
-
15:50 - 15:54This word, which existed
before it became a slur, -
15:54 - 16:00but it becomes a slur at a very
distinct moment in US history, -
16:00 - 16:05and that's as large numbers
of black people begin to become free, -
16:05 - 16:08starting in the North in the 1820s.
-
16:08 - 16:10In other words,
-
16:10 - 16:15this word is fundamentally
an assault on black freedom, -
16:15 - 16:17black mobility,
-
16:17 - 16:19and black aspiration.
-
16:20 - 16:21Even now,
-
16:21 - 16:25nothing so swiftly unleashes
an N-word tirade -
16:25 - 16:28as a black person asserting their rights
-
16:28 - 16:31or going where they please or prospering.
-
16:31 - 16:34Think of the attacks
on Colin Kaepernick when he kneeled. -
16:35 - 16:38Or Barack Obama when he became president.
-
16:39 - 16:42My students want to know this history.
-
16:43 - 16:47But when they ask questions,
they're shushed and shamed. -
16:48 - 16:51By shying away from talking
about the N-word, -
16:52 - 16:56we have turned this word
into the ultimate taboo, -
16:56 - 16:59crafting it into something so tantalizing,
-
16:59 - 17:01that for all US kids,
-
17:01 - 17:05no matter their racial background,
-
17:05 - 17:07part of their coming of age
is figuring out -
17:07 - 17:09how to negotiate this word.
-
17:09 - 17:12We treat conversations about it
like sex before sex education. -
17:13 - 17:16We're squeamish, we silence them.
-
17:16 - 17:20So they learn about it
from misinformed friends and in whispers. -
17:22 - 17:24I wish I could go back
to the classroom that day -
17:24 - 17:26and push through my fear
-
17:26 - 17:30to talk about the fact
that something actually happened. -
17:30 - 17:32Not just to me or to my black students.
-
17:32 - 17:34But to all of us.
-
17:35 - 17:37You know, I think
-
17:37 - 17:41we're all connected by our inability
to talk about this word. -
17:42 - 17:45But what if we explored
our points of encounter -
17:45 - 17:47and did start to talk about it?
-
17:49 - 17:52Today, I try to create
the conditions in my classroom -
17:52 - 17:55to have open and honest
conversations about it. -
17:55 - 17:58One of those conditions --
not saying the word. -
17:59 - 18:00We're able to talk about it
-
18:00 - 18:02because it doesn't come
into the classroom. -
18:03 - 18:04Another important condition
-
18:04 - 18:07is I don't make
my black students responsible -
18:07 - 18:10for teaching their classmates about this.
-
18:10 - 18:11That is my job.
-
18:11 - 18:13So I come prepared.
-
18:13 - 18:17I hold the conversation with a tight rein,
-
18:17 - 18:20and I'm armed with
knowledge of the history. -
18:20 - 18:24I always ask students the same question:
-
18:24 - 18:28Why is talking about the N-word hard?
-
18:28 - 18:31Their answers are amazing.
-
18:31 - 18:33They're amazing.
-
18:34 - 18:36More than anything though,
-
18:36 - 18:42I have become deeply acquainted
with my own points of encounter, -
18:42 - 18:44my personal history around this word.
-
18:45 - 18:48Because when the N-word comes to school,
-
18:48 - 18:51or really anywhere,
-
18:51 - 18:56it brings with it all
of the complicated history of US racism. -
18:57 - 18:59The nation's history
-
18:59 - 19:00and my own,
-
19:00 - 19:03right here, right now.
-
19:04 - 19:05There's no avoiding it.
-
19:06 - 19:08(Applause)
- Title:
- Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word
- Speaker:
- Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor
- Description:
-
Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor leads a thoughtful and history-backed examination of one of the most divisive words in the English language: the N-word. Drawing from personal experience, she explains how reflecting on our points of encounter with the word can help promote productive discussions and, ultimately, create a framework that reshapes education around the complicated history of racism in the US.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 19:21
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word | ||
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word | ||
Erin Gregory approved English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word | ||
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word | ||
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word | ||
Krystian Aparta accepted English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word |