a calculated move.

I was a sophomore at UT when my badass of an american lit professor, brian bremen, made us read twain's huckleberry finn. i hated the book, not because of the use of the n word, but because it really didn't interest me. anyway, it was the n word that dominated so many conversations in the time we spent discussing the book. and it was dr. bremen who made the entire class watch this scene from a richard pryor performance. first, bremen showed us a million different clips before pryor's trip to africa in which pryor dropped the n word like it was nothing, again and again and again. at first, it was hard to see where bremen was going with the whole lesson. it seemed more of a "black people are the only ones who can use it" sort of thing. and then we watched this scene.

don't get me wrong. i do think it's different when a black person uses the word. i just appreciated what pryor had to say, sentimental as it may seem.

i have always taken issue with people using it. i hate it. i don't use it, and, as a minority, the use of it by someone else makes me want to scream. of course there's always been that justification of, "well, black people themselves use it," to which i stick my fingers in my ears (very maturely, of course) and say "la la la la la" because such an argument does not register with me. no, i'm not black, but the word offends me just the same. i can feel my face flush with anger and embarrassment just as it would if someone had said "wetback." and i honestly feel that the older i get, the more it bothers me.

yeah, there's not much i can do right now. i've witnessed first hand how easily i can be shrugged off as some dumb little mexican who has perhaps wandered a little too far from her pueblo. don't count me out, though. i'll be back.