0:00:00.802,0:00:03.166
The minute she said it,

0:00:03.190,0:00:05.857
the temperature in my classroom dropped.

0:00:06.865,0:00:10.696
My students are usually[br]laser-focused on me,

0:00:10.720,0:00:13.987
but they shifted in their seats[br]and looked away.

0:00:15.347,0:00:16.887
I'm a black woman

0:00:16.911,0:00:21.013
who teaches the histories[br]of race and US slavery.

0:00:21.831,0:00:25.664
I'm aware that my social identity[br]is always on display.

0:00:26.323,0:00:28.029
And my students are vulnerable too,

0:00:28.053,0:00:29.203
so I'm careful.

0:00:29.680,0:00:33.412
I try to anticipate[br]what part of my lesson might go wrong.

0:00:34.179,0:00:35.364
But honestly,

0:00:35.388,0:00:37.577
I didn't even see this one coming.

0:00:37.601,0:00:40.537
None of my years of graduate school[br]prepared me for what to do

0:00:40.561,0:00:43.028
when the N-word entered my classroom.

0:00:44.025,0:00:45.779
I was in my first year of teaching

0:00:45.803,0:00:48.549
when the student said[br]the N-word in my class.

0:00:49.541,0:00:51.741
She was not calling anyone a name.

0:00:52.530,0:00:55.355
She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

0:00:55.704,0:00:58.037
She came to class with her readings done,

0:00:58.061,0:00:59.831
she sat in the front row

0:00:59.855,0:01:02.283
and she was always on my team.

0:01:03.895,0:01:05.101
When she said it,

0:01:05.125,0:01:07.418
she was actually making a point[br]about my lecture,

0:01:07.442,0:01:11.696
by quoting a line from a 1970s[br]movie, a comedy,

0:01:11.720,0:01:13.453
that had two racist slurs.

0:01:14.016,0:01:16.405
One for people of Chinese descent

0:01:16.429,0:01:18.162
and the other the N-word.

0:01:19.143,0:01:23.135
As soon as she said it,[br]I held up my hands, said, "Whoa, whoa."

0:01:23.159,0:01:24.410
But she assured me,

0:01:24.434,0:01:27.156
"It's a joke from 'Blazing Saddles,'"

0:01:27.180,0:01:28.847
and then she repeated it.

0:01:30.434,0:01:32.121
This all happened 10 years ago,

0:01:32.145,0:01:35.411
and how I handled it[br]haunted me for a long time.

0:01:36.180,0:01:38.506
It wasn't the first time[br]I thought about the word

0:01:38.530,0:01:39.886
in an academic setting.

0:01:40.450,0:01:42.688
I'm a professor of US history,

0:01:42.712,0:01:45.609
it's in a lot[br]of the documents that I teach.

0:01:45.633,0:01:47.366
So I had to make a choice.

0:01:48.561,0:01:50.466
After consulting with someone I trusted,

0:01:50.490,0:01:52.387
I decided to never say it.

0:01:52.411,0:01:53.811
Not even to quote it.

0:01:54.220,0:01:58.020
But instead to use[br]the euphemistic phrase, "the N-word."

0:01:59.292,0:02:01.558
Even this decision was complicated.

0:02:02.366,0:02:03.847
I didn't have tenure yet,

0:02:03.871,0:02:05.744
and I worried that senior colleagues

0:02:05.768,0:02:10.331
would think that by using the phrase[br]I wasn't a serious scholar.

0:02:10.776,0:02:13.839
But saying the actual word[br]still felt worse.

0:02:14.793,0:02:19.300
The incident in my classroom forced me[br]to publicly reckon with the word.

0:02:19.674,0:02:22.555
The history, the violence,

0:02:22.579,0:02:24.029
but also --

0:02:25.141,0:02:29.688
The history, the violence,[br]but also any time it was hurled at me,

0:02:29.712,0:02:31.641
spoken casually in front of me,

0:02:31.665,0:02:35.112
any time it rested on the tip[br]of someone's tongue,

0:02:35.136,0:02:37.954
it all came flooding up in that moment,

0:02:37.978,0:02:40.223
right in front of my students.

0:02:40.247,0:02:42.181
And I had no idea what to do.

0:02:44.284,0:02:48.545
So I've come to call stories like mine[br]points of encounter.

0:02:50.037,0:02:55.084
A point of encounter describes the moment[br]you came face-to-face with the N-word.

0:02:55.712,0:02:59.505
If you've even been stumped[br]or provoked by the word,

0:02:59.529,0:03:03.315
whether as the result[br]of an awkward social situation,

0:03:03.339,0:03:06.466
an uncomfortable academic conversation,

0:03:06.490,0:03:08.434
something you heard in pop culture,

0:03:08.458,0:03:10.737
or if you've been called the slur,

0:03:10.761,0:03:13.170
or witnessed someone[br]getting called the slur,

0:03:13.194,0:03:15.752
you have experienced a point of encounter.

0:03:16.189,0:03:18.959
And depending on who you are[br]and how that moment goes down,

0:03:18.983,0:03:21.863
you might have a range of responses.

0:03:21.887,0:03:23.537
Could throw you off a little bit,

0:03:23.561,0:03:26.961
or it could be incredibly[br]painful and humiliating.

0:03:28.490,0:03:31.656
I've had lots of these[br]points of encounter in my life,

0:03:31.680,0:03:34.196
but one thing is true.

0:03:34.220,0:03:37.004
There's not a lot of space[br]to talk about them.

0:03:40.424,0:03:43.933
That day in my classroom[br]was pretty much like all of those times

0:03:43.957,0:03:46.574
I had an uninvited run-in with the N-word.

0:03:46.598,0:03:47.748
I froze.

0:03:48.547,0:03:51.280
Because the N-word is hard to talk about.

0:03:52.809,0:03:55.936
Part of the reason the N-word[br]is so hard to talk about,

0:03:55.960,0:03:59.133
it's usually only discussed in one way,

0:03:59.157,0:04:01.783
as a figure of speech,[br]we hear this all the time, right?

0:04:01.807,0:04:03.704
It's just a word.

0:04:03.728,0:04:07.262
The burning question that cycles[br]through social media

0:04:07.286,0:04:09.326
is who can and cannot say it.

0:04:10.563,0:04:14.556
Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates[br]does a groundbreaking job

0:04:14.580,0:04:17.379
of defending the African American[br]use of the word.

0:04:17.403,0:04:19.593
On the other hand, Wendy Kaminer,

0:04:19.617,0:04:21.553
a white freedom of speech advocate,

0:04:21.577,0:04:24.157
argues that if we don't all[br]just come and say it,

0:04:24.181,0:04:25.802
we give the word power.

0:04:25.826,0:04:27.674
And a lot of people feel that way.

0:04:28.580,0:04:31.397
The Pew Center recently[br]entered the debate.

0:04:31.738,0:04:36.513
In a survey called "Race in America 2019,"

0:04:36.537,0:04:40.012
researchers asked US adults[br]if they thought is was OK

0:04:40.036,0:04:42.545
for a white person to say the N-word.

0:04:43.188,0:04:46.902
Seventy percent of all[br]adults surveyed said "never."

0:04:48.236,0:04:50.369
And these debates are important.

0:04:50.712,0:04:52.742
But they really obscure something else.

0:04:52.766,0:04:56.823
They keep us from getting underneath[br]to the real conversation.

0:04:57.601,0:05:00.363
Which is that the N-word[br]is not just a word.

0:05:01.133,0:05:05.523
It's not neatly contained[br]in a racist past,

0:05:05.547,0:05:07.624
a relic of slavery.

0:05:09.236,0:05:15.513
Fundamentally, the N-word[br]is an idea disguised as a word:

0:05:15.537,0:05:18.751
that black people are intellectually,

0:05:18.775,0:05:20.331
biologically

0:05:20.355,0:05:24.375
and immutably inferior to white people.

0:05:24.860,0:05:28.978
And -- and I think[br]this is the most important part --

0:05:29.002,0:05:32.685
that that inferiority means[br]that the injustice we suffer

0:05:32.709,0:05:34.109
and inequality we endure

0:05:34.133,0:05:36.066
is essentially our own fault.

0:05:39.053,0:05:43.144
So, yes, it is ...

0:05:48.710,0:05:52.133
Speaking of the word only as racist spew

0:05:52.157,0:05:55.585
or as an obscenity in hip hop music

0:05:55.609,0:05:58.696
makes it sounds as if it's a disease

0:05:58.720,0:06:00.729
located in the American vocal cords

0:06:00.753,0:06:02.753
that can be snipped right out.

0:06:03.355,0:06:06.188
It's not, and it can't.

0:06:06.728,0:06:09.028
And I learned this[br]from talking to my students.

0:06:09.560,0:06:12.552
So next time class met,

0:06:12.576,0:06:14.123
I apologized,

0:06:14.147,0:06:16.940
and I made an announcement.

0:06:16.964,0:06:18.698
I would have a new policy.

0:06:19.800,0:06:23.903
Students would see the word[br]in my PowerPoints,

0:06:23.927,0:06:26.934
in film, in essays they read,

0:06:26.958,0:06:31.767
but we would never ever[br]say the word out loud in class.

0:06:32.871,0:06:34.604
Nobody ever said it again.

0:06:34.966,0:06:37.232
But they didn't learn much either.

0:06:38.427,0:06:40.260
Afterwards, what bothered me most

0:06:40.284,0:06:42.458
was that I didn't even explain to students

0:06:42.482,0:06:47.141
why, of all the vile, problematic words[br]in American English,

0:06:47.165,0:06:51.236
why this particular word[br]had its own buffer,

0:06:51.260,0:06:53.527
the surrogate phrase "the N-word."

0:06:54.149,0:06:56.262
Most of my students,

0:06:56.286,0:07:00.390
many of them born[br]in the late 1990s and afterwards,

0:07:00.414,0:07:03.318
didn't even know[br]that the phrase "the N-word"

0:07:03.342,0:07:06.315
is a relatively new invention[br]in American English.

0:07:06.339,0:07:08.939
When I was growing up, it didn't exist.

0:07:10.339,0:07:14.172
But in the late 1980s,

0:07:14.196,0:07:18.069
black college students,[br]writers, intellectuals,

0:07:18.093,0:07:23.458
more and more started to talk about[br]racist attacks against them.

0:07:25.070,0:07:28.212
But increasingly,[br]when they told these stories,

0:07:28.236,0:07:30.721
they stopped using the word.

0:07:31.784,0:07:33.982
Instead, they reduced it to the initial N

0:07:34.006,0:07:36.097
and called it "the N-word."

0:07:37.093,0:07:39.426
They felt that every time[br]the word was uttered

0:07:39.450,0:07:42.561
it opened up old wounds,[br]so they refused to say it.

0:07:43.101,0:07:46.894
They knew their listeners would hear[br]the actual word in their heads.

0:07:47.228,0:07:48.695
That wasn't the point.

0:07:49.394,0:07:52.505
The point was they didn't want[br]to put the word in their own mouths

0:07:52.529,0:07:53.679
or into the air.

0:07:55.045,0:07:56.862
By doing this,

0:07:56.886,0:08:00.019
they made an entire nation[br]start to second-guess themselves

0:08:00.043,0:08:01.193
about saying it.

0:08:02.980,0:08:06.824
This was such a radical move

0:08:06.848,0:08:09.015
that people are still mad about it.

0:08:10.617,0:08:15.499
Critics accuse those of us[br]who use the phrase "the N-word,"

0:08:15.523,0:08:17.674
or people who become outraged,

0:08:17.698,0:08:19.864
you know, just because the word is said,

0:08:19.888,0:08:21.967
of being overprincipled,

0:08:21.991,0:08:23.633
politically correct

0:08:23.657,0:08:26.752
or, as I just read a couple of weeks ago[br]in The New York Times,

0:08:26.776,0:08:28.109
"insufferably woke."

0:08:28.657,0:08:30.013
Right?

0:08:30.037,0:08:32.728
So I bought into this a little bit too,

0:08:32.752,0:08:36.649
which is why the next time[br]I taught the course

0:08:36.673,0:08:40.055
I proposed a freedom of speech debate.

0:08:41.410,0:08:46.108
The N-word in academic spaces,[br]for or against?

0:08:47.473,0:08:49.657
I was certain students would be eager

0:08:49.681,0:08:52.569
to debate who gets to say it[br]and who doesn't.

0:08:53.744,0:08:54.894
But they weren't.

0:08:56.871,0:08:58.021
Instead ...

0:09:00.038,0:09:02.656
my students started confessing.

0:09:04.910,0:09:09.037
A white student from New Jersey[br]talked about standing by

0:09:09.061,0:09:11.728
as a black kid at her school[br]got bullied by this word.

0:09:11.752,0:09:15.259
She did nothing and years later[br]still carried the guilt.

0:09:16.665,0:09:18.656
Another from Connecticut

0:09:19.807,0:09:22.418
talked about the pain of severing

0:09:22.442,0:09:25.175
a very close relationship[br]with a family member,

0:09:25.199,0:09:28.542
because that family member[br]refused to stop saying the word.

0:09:31.075,0:09:35.514
One of the most memorable stories[br]came from a very quiet black student

0:09:35.538,0:09:36.871
from South Carolina.

0:09:37.290,0:09:39.323
She didn't understand all the fuss.

0:09:39.755,0:09:42.888
She said everyone[br]at her school said the word.

0:09:43.969,0:09:48.159
She wasn't talking about kids[br]calling each other names in the hall.

0:09:48.945,0:09:52.887
She explained that at her school

0:09:52.911,0:09:55.117
when teachers and administrators

0:09:55.141,0:09:58.863
became frustrated[br]with an African American student,

0:09:58.887,0:10:02.125
they called that student[br]the actual N-word.

0:10:03.344,0:10:05.811
She said it didn't bother her at all.

0:10:06.264,0:10:07.868
But then a couple of days later,

0:10:07.892,0:10:12.376
she came to visit me[br]in my office hours and wept.

0:10:13.667,0:10:15.467
She thought she was immune.

0:10:16.238,0:10:18.172
She realized that she wasn't.

0:10:19.508,0:10:22.246
Over the last 10 years,

0:10:22.270,0:10:25.707
I have literally heard hundreds[br]of these stories

0:10:25.731,0:10:28.928
from all kinds of people from all ages.

0:10:29.391,0:10:33.024
People in their 50s remembering stories[br]from the second grade

0:10:33.048,0:10:34.405
and when they were six,

0:10:34.429,0:10:37.700
either calling people the word[br]or being called the word,

0:10:37.724,0:10:42.819
but carrying that all these years[br]around this word, you know.

0:10:42.843,0:10:47.649
And as I listened to people[br]talk about their points of encounter,

0:10:47.673,0:10:52.323
the pattern that emerged for me[br]as a teacher that I found most upsetting

0:10:52.347,0:10:54.998
is the single most fraught site

0:10:55.022,0:10:57.299
for these points of encounter

0:10:57.323,0:10:58.791
is the classroom.

0:11:00.307,0:11:04.855
Most US kids are going to meet[br]the N-word in class.

0:11:05.927,0:11:09.728
One of the most assigned books[br]in US high schools

0:11:09.752,0:11:12.347
is Mark Twain’s "The Adventures[br]of Huckleberry Finn"

0:11:12.371,0:11:15.665
in which the word appears over 200 times.

0:11:16.023,0:11:19.015
And this isn't an indictment[br]of "Huck Finn."

0:11:19.039,0:11:22.641
The word is in lots[br]of US literature and history.

0:11:22.665,0:11:25.990
It's all over African[br]American literature.

0:11:26.498,0:11:28.593
Yet I hear from students

0:11:28.617,0:11:33.038
that when the word is said during a lesson

0:11:33.062,0:11:36.411
without discussion and context,

0:11:36.435,0:11:40.364
it poisons the entire[br]classroom environment.

0:11:41.006,0:11:44.926
The trust between student[br]and teacher is broken.

0:11:46.927,0:11:50.489
Even so, many teachers,

0:11:50.513,0:11:53.098
often with the very best of intentions,

0:11:53.122,0:11:55.122
still say the N-word in class.

0:11:57.244,0:12:02.379
They want to show and emphasize[br]the horrors of US racism,

0:12:02.403,0:12:05.156
so they rely on it for shock value.

0:12:05.994,0:12:08.875
Invoking it brings into stark relief

0:12:08.899,0:12:11.867
the ugliness of our nation's past.

0:12:12.391,0:12:13.883
But they forget

0:12:13.907,0:12:18.366
the ideas are alive and well[br]in our cultural fabric.

0:12:25.152,0:12:30.586
The six-letter word is like a capsule[br]of accumulated hurt.

0:12:32.712,0:12:35.374
Every time it is said, every time,

0:12:35.398,0:12:38.934
it releases into the atmosphere[br]the hateful notion

0:12:38.958,0:12:41.736
that black people are less.

0:12:43.942,0:12:45.148
My black students tell me

0:12:45.172,0:12:47.672
that when the word is quoted[br]or spoken in class,

0:12:47.696,0:12:51.688
they feel like a giant spotlight[br]is shining on them.

0:12:53.037,0:12:54.359
One of my students told me

0:12:54.359,0:12:56.878
that his classmates[br]were like bobbleheads,

0:12:56.902,0:12:58.902
turning to gauge his reaction.

0:13:00.874,0:13:04.096
A white student told me[br]that in the eighth grade,

0:13:04.120,0:13:07.985
when they were learning[br]"To Kill a Mockingbird"

0:13:08.668,0:13:10.268
and reading it out loud in class,

0:13:10.292,0:13:12.696
the student was stressed out

0:13:12.720,0:13:15.681
at the idea of having to read the word,

0:13:15.705,0:13:19.304
which the teacher insisted[br]all students do,

0:13:19.328,0:13:23.115
that the student ended up[br]spending most of the unit

0:13:23.139,0:13:24.939
hiding out in the bathroom.

0:13:25.868,0:13:27.455
This is serious.

0:13:27.479,0:13:29.865
Students across the country

0:13:29.889,0:13:33.196
talk about switching majors[br]and dropping classes

0:13:33.220,0:13:36.166
because of poor teaching[br]around the N-word.

0:13:36.190,0:13:40.451
The issue of faculty[br]carelessly speaking the word

0:13:40.475,0:13:42.855
has reached such a fevered pitch,

0:13:42.879,0:13:46.680
it's led to protests at Princeton, Emory,

0:13:46.704,0:13:48.141
The New School,

0:13:48.165,0:13:50.672
Smith College, where I teach,

0:13:50.696,0:13:52.467
and Williams College,

0:13:52.491,0:13:58.474
where just recently students have[br]boycotted the entire English Department

0:13:58.498,0:14:00.841
over it and other issues.

0:14:01.520,0:14:04.306
And these were just the cases[br]that make the news.

0:14:04.948,0:14:06.567
This is a crisis.

0:14:07.298,0:14:09.186
And while student reaction

0:14:09.210,0:14:11.625
looks like an attack on freedom of speech,

0:14:11.649,0:14:15.212
I promise this is an issue of teaching.

0:14:15.982,0:14:20.507
My students are not afraid[br]of materials that have the N-word in it.

0:14:21.284,0:14:23.490
They want to learn about James Baldwin

0:14:23.514,0:14:25.244
and William Faulkner

0:14:25.268,0:14:27.228
and about the civil rights movement.

0:14:29.204,0:14:33.260
In fact, their stories show

0:14:33.284,0:14:38.029
that this word is a central feature[br]of their lives as young people

0:14:38.053,0:14:39.453
in the United States.

0:14:40.627,0:14:42.484
It's in the music they love.

0:14:42.508,0:14:45.019
And in the popular culture they emulate,

0:14:45.043,0:14:47.087
the comedy they watch,

0:14:47.111,0:14:49.500
it's in TV and movies

0:14:49.524,0:14:51.738
and memorialized in museums.

0:14:52.516,0:14:54.485
They hear it in locker rooms,

0:14:54.509,0:14:56.301
on Instagram,

0:14:56.325,0:14:58.349
in the hallways at school,

0:14:58.373,0:15:01.283
in the chat rooms[br]of the video games they play.

0:15:01.307,0:15:03.990
It is all over the world they navigate.

0:15:04.300,0:15:06.268
But they don't know how to think about it

0:15:06.292,0:15:09.085
or even really what the word means.

0:15:10.351,0:15:12.740
I didn't even really understand[br]what the word meant

0:15:12.764,0:15:14.497
until I did some research.

0:15:14.803,0:15:17.264
I was astonished to learn

0:15:17.288,0:15:21.163
that black people first incorporated[br]the N-word into the vocabulary

0:15:21.187,0:15:23.171
as political protest,

0:15:23.195,0:15:26.203
not in the 1970s or 1980s

0:15:26.227,0:15:29.075
but as far back as the 1770s.

0:15:29.591,0:15:31.396
And I wish I had more time to talk

0:15:31.420,0:15:36.174
about the long, subversive history[br]of the black use of the N-word.

0:15:36.625,0:15:38.720
But I will say this:

0:15:38.744,0:15:42.044
Many times, my students[br]will come up to me and say,

0:15:42.068,0:15:45.476
"I understand the virulent roots[br]of this word, it's slavery."

0:15:46.767,0:15:48.700
They are only partially right.

0:15:50.101,0:15:54.434
This word, which existed[br]before it became a slur,

0:15:54.458,0:15:59.927
but it becomes a slur at a very[br]distinct moment in US history,

0:15:59.951,0:16:05.118
and that's as large numbers[br]of black people begin to become free,

0:16:05.142,0:16:07.801
starting in the North in the 1820s.

0:16:08.246,0:16:09.982
In other words,

0:16:10.006,0:16:15.037
this word is fundamentally[br]an assault on black freedom,

0:16:15.061,0:16:16.553
black mobility,

0:16:16.577,0:16:18.674
and black aspiration.

0:16:19.691,0:16:20.842
Even now,

0:16:20.866,0:16:25.143
nothing so swiftly unleashes[br]an N-word tirade

0:16:25.167,0:16:27.857
as a black person asserting their rights

0:16:27.881,0:16:31.275
or going where they please or prospering.

0:16:31.299,0:16:34.406
Think of the attacks[br]on Colin Kaepernick when he kneeled.

0:16:34.784,0:16:37.584
Or Barack Obama when he became president.

0:16:38.601,0:16:41.529
My students want to know this history.

0:16:42.958,0:16:46.569
But when they ask questions,[br]they're shushed and shamed.

0:16:48.148,0:16:51.498
By shying away from talking[br]about the N-word,

0:16:51.522,0:16:56.331
we have turned this word[br]into the ultimate taboo,

0:16:56.355,0:16:59.331
crafting it into something so tantalizing,

0:16:59.355,0:17:01.434
that for all US kids,

0:17:01.458,0:17:04.506
no matter their racial background,

0:17:04.530,0:17:06.553
part of their coming of age[br]is figuring out

0:17:06.577,0:17:08.648
how to negotiate this word.

0:17:08.672,0:17:12.375
We treat conversations about it[br]like sex before sex education.

0:17:13.375,0:17:15.508
We're squeamish, we silence them.

0:17:16.224,0:17:20.454
So they learn about it[br]from misinformed friends and in whispers.

0:17:21.664,0:17:24.268
I wish I could go back[br]to the classroom that day

0:17:24.292,0:17:26.120
and push through my fear

0:17:26.144,0:17:29.569
to talk about the fact[br]that something actually happened.

0:17:29.593,0:17:32.449
Not just to me or to my black students.

0:17:32.473,0:17:33.902
But to all of us.

0:17:34.665,0:17:37.371
You know, I think

0:17:37.395,0:17:41.410
we're all connected by our inability[br]to talk about this word.

0:17:42.276,0:17:45.189
But what if we explored[br]our points of encounter

0:17:45.213,0:17:47.280
and did start to talk about it?

0:17:48.641,0:17:51.991
Today, I try to create[br]the conditions in my classroom

0:17:52.015,0:17:54.944
to have open and honest[br]conversations about it.

0:17:55.315,0:17:58.355
One of those conditions --[br]not saying the word.

0:17:58.942,0:18:00.268
We're able to talk about it

0:18:00.292,0:18:02.482
because it doesn't come[br]into the classroom.

0:18:02.855,0:18:04.361
Another important condition

0:18:04.385,0:18:06.887
is I don't make[br]my black students responsible

0:18:06.911,0:18:09.688
for teaching their classmates about this.

0:18:09.712,0:18:11.021
That is my job.

0:18:11.323,0:18:12.720
So I come prepared.

0:18:13.188,0:18:16.770
I hold the conversation with a tight rein,

0:18:16.794,0:18:19.998
and I'm armed with[br]knowledge of the history.

0:18:20.022,0:18:24.228
I always ask students the same question:

0:18:24.252,0:18:27.529
Why is talking about the N-word hard?

0:18:28.165,0:18:30.609
Their answers are amazing.

0:18:31.387,0:18:32.537
They're amazing.

0:18:34.075,0:18:36.336
More than anything though,

0:18:36.360,0:18:41.789
I have become deeply acquainted[br]with my own points of encounter,

0:18:41.813,0:18:44.315
my personal history around this word.

0:18:45.419,0:18:48.442
Because when the N-word comes to school,

0:18:48.466,0:18:50.522
or really anywhere,

0:18:50.546,0:18:55.884
it brings with it all[br]of the complicated history of US racism.

0:18:56.639,0:18:58.853
The nation's history

0:18:58.877,0:19:00.369
and my own,

0:19:00.393,0:19:03.317
right here, right now.

0:19:03.730,0:19:05.263
There's no avoiding it.

0:19:05.889,0:19:08.317
(Applause)