Q: How did you like living in
A: A lot of black people in
Not all of them friendly.
“What you looking at?”
Q: When a black person dies in
A: I called
Q: Is that racist? Black Experience Citizen?
A: It depends on whether you are a black experience citizen or a white person.
If you are a white person you are a racist.
Q: A white racist.
A: No, that suggests a black person can be a racist. The victims of racial discrimination can’t be racists. White people are racists. Black people are victims of discrimination. They have a history. Their history makes them different. Unless you’ve lived through that you don’t understand it. You can’t understand it. If you have, you do.
Q: I see. Where did you get this idea?
A: I took a diversity class where I worked. It was taught by a man who believed in aggressive multiculturalism. That was the premise. White people are racist.
They must learn to face their racism.
Q: Were there white people and black people in this class?
A: Yes.
Q: Did it lead to a greater understanding? Between the races?
A: It led to polarization and greater hostility. I thought.
Q: It all depends whose ox is being gored.
A: We don’t like it when the shoe is on the other foot.
Q: Old Blue, he can dish it out, but he can’t take it.
A: I got to take it. It was my turn to take it.
The instructor said, “Jack, there, is a racist. And he’s not even ashamed of it.”
Q: Were you ashamed of it?
A: I didn’t admit it. I don’t think I’m a racist.
Q: Racists never do.
A: No, I thought I was, and looked. I decided I wasn’t.
Q: On what evidence?
A: Start at the pointing finger and trace it back.
If someone is calling you a racist, chances are, they’re a racist. They’re the racist.
Q: Was the instructor a racist?
A: You betchum Little Beaver. He was eat up with it.
Q: What made him decide you were a racist.
A: He asked everyone to participate. Honestly and openly.
I did.
He went around the room and asked if anybody used the n word to refer to black people.
None of the black people said they did.
None of the white people said they did.
I said I did.
Q: Did he let you qualify it, or explain?
A: It didn’t matter. One was not supposed to use it.
Enlightened people didn’t use it.
People who used it were racist.
Q: In what circumstances did you use it?
A: I thought it.
I didn’t think, “What does that colored person want?” or, “Here comes a colored person, I wonder what they want.”
I thought, “What does that nigger want?” or, “Here comes a nigger, I wonder what they want.”
Q: Did you speak like that?
A: At home, or at work, among people who talked like that. Rednecks.
Q: You didn’t use the word in front of black people?
A: No. It offended them.
Q: In front of educated white people? White liberals?
A: They misunderstood. They thought it was disrespectful.
It was.
Q: But it wasn’t disrespectful among rednecks, or at home?
A: It was informal. Natural. Anything else was ostentatious, or a euphemism.
Q: Ah, so it’s levels of usage we’re talking about. Formal versus informal.
A: Yes. The social context.
Q: You didn’t call black people the n word?
A: No. But the black people in the class couldn’t accept that I would think of black people in those terms, using that word, and not be a racist.
The word was not neutral. Could not be neutral. It was loaded.
I thought black people could use it in a neutral way. Indeed, I had heard black people use it that way.
Q: Do you think they were lying when they said they didn’t use it?
A: I think they were disingenuous.
Q: Did you think the instructor was unbiased? Without prejudice?
A: No, he had an axe to grind, ideologically. He was biased. Against white people.
He manipulated both groups of people.
It was like arguing religion with a Jesuit. He knew all the replies.
Q: But he didn’t comvince you?
A: No. My heart was pure.
Do you know that song with the lyrics,
We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher leave them kids alone
Q: Pink Floyd. “Another Brick in the Wall. Part II.”
A: He was brainwashed. He was a true believer.
He could argue rings around me.
Q: But he couldn’t change your mind. Because you were a racist.
A: No, he couldn’t change my mind because he was a racist, and I wasn’t. I was just outnumbered. In his class.