Why it’s so hard to talk about the N-word | Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

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Historian 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.

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48 Comments on Why it’s so hard to talk about the N-word | Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

  1. Gotta say, props for her talking about this and saying what the N-word has on the impact on others and throughout history how it’s more then a word.

  2. Not saying it will basically not change anything, racists will still be racists regardless. I wish we could learn to make informed judgements of what was or wasn’t an inappropriate use, put things into context and accept that not everyone has the same level of sensitivity to it, mostly given current pop culture. You’re not erasing the past or changing it’s meaning by using a phrase instead.

  3. People can’t tell the difference about talking about the word itself or using it as a quote and using it as curse word. That’s because people are illogical and emotional and can’t think with knowledge and distinctions.

  4. Never been called the N word but watching Black people react to the N-word is a hot mess. Nobody should have that much power over your emotions at all period

  5. I was doing some Spanish immersion in Perú and my host brother, who doesn’t speak English, at times would show off the English he did know, and we were working on something and he said “good job my _______.” He thought that the N word was the same as saying “homie, bro,” or any other word we use to mean “friend” or “close friend.” That is how this young person who doesn’t speak English thinks the word is used based on context of popular culture uses.

    • I once had a flatmate from Uruguay who used it and when I asked him not to do so, he said that “latinos are allowed to use it”.

    • Because that is how it’s supposed to be used. I’m African American and know that from my entire life. And there’s nothing wrong with him using it that way.

    • @Rim Diab it’s interesting to consider. I would have to know more history of the involvement of Latino peoples in the United Stazian African/ European problems before I could have an opinion.

  6. When I was at school, we read Of Mice And Men, and so as you can imagine, this issue came up for the few times it appears in the text. Our teacher didn’t go all or nothing like the examples in the video, god no, instead she said at the start of the module that essentially she’s here to teach us the book, to analyse it, to write about it, and that she wouldn’t be doing us any favours by censoring it. We weren’t encouraged to use the word but we were allowed to recite passages of the book uncensored, or we could refer to the word euphemistically, it was our choice. It was a small class so inappropriate use / bullying was never an issue.

  7. In my childhood soviet school, this word was a scientific definition of race, like mongoloid race for example. And we didn’t see any problem in it. But of course I understand the pain and tragedy this word is connected with. And Russians calls the people from Africa with this word, not even thinking they could hurt them. Because its hard to meet black people in Russia. Also Russians smiles when they see black man. It’s like they see a miracle. I’m sorry for my english or if I said something wrong.

  8. I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird out loud in class and our teacher told us to read the word out loud. It showed up in a chunk I was supposed to read and I felt uncomfortable so I skipped over it. The teacher told us to read it, but I knew that something about it was wrong, even though I didn’t know the history.

    Also, my dudes, what is up with this like to dislike ratio?

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