[email protected]

In a message dated 1/27/03 6:56:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,
durrell@... writes:

> Maybe black people play around with that horrible name just so they can
> own the name. Maybe that's better than waiting for some white person to
> call them that or their children that. Imagine your three or six year
> old innocent child walking down the street and having someone call him
> that. Shame on us.
>
> Peggy
>

Peggy, I agree. I think maybe it does give them some empowerment to be able
to use the word casually. But, I think that no matter how much they say it
among themselves.. when they get called the N word by a white person, its
painful. And, yes, its shameful. My dilema was trying to explain to my
children that it was OK for black people to say it, but not for white people.
They had never heard it in a negative way. They had never heard a white
person call a black person the N word out of hate or prejudice. To JP..
"Nigger" was an term, like "buddy", "homey" .. I really had to stress to him
that it was not nice.. it was downright ugly, hateful, when used by white
folks.

Teresa


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]