by Buddy Netter

Created on: June 08, 2009

The Unspeakable "N" Word

I was taught way back in the day to refer to African Americans (a descriptive term yet to be coined) as either "colored people" or "negroes." As I grew older, I became aware that there was a word that you never said, that it wasn't nice, it was not uttered, and that was the unspeakable "N" word.

When our family moved from the State of Washington to Northern California, my sister and I experienced for the first time black children in our school. There was a little girl in my sister's class named Julie Sue. Julie Sue lived just a couple of blocks from the elementary school we attended, and although my sister had a much longer walk home, the two of them would walk as far as Julie Sue's house after school together and then my sister would continue her walk home alone.

One day my mother got a phone call from our very concerned aunt saying that people were starting to talk about my sister walking home from school with Julie Sue and that she needed to tell her to stop, as that kind of thing could be very bad for our family. Why this was a problem, I never understood, as Julie Sue was included in the Blue Bird group my sister and our cousin (aunt's daughter) both belonged to.

When I was 13, I was included in a trip to Mississippi with my mother's brother and his family to visit his wife's parents and relatives. I was an unwilling guest (I had wanted to remain home and hang with my friends), but it was agreed by the adults that this would be a good experience for me and broaden my horizons. What I saw there opened my eyes to the inequality for people of color in the south like nothing on TV ever did. I saw the separate drinking fountains and restrooms with my very own eyes and returned home to share with my family. As my sister and I became more aware of the civil rights movement taking place in the south, we found that we had little patience for prejudiced people and often spoke out against racism, even though it was an unpopular stance in those days. The changing times of the late 60s taught us to refer to people of color as "black" as that is what they began to call themselves, and black pride became a new source of power and identity.

The current term of respect is African Americans. I believe in referring to any people by the words they wish to be used to define their race. There was one social trend, however, I found surprising, and that is African American people using the so-called "N" word among themselves. You hear it in rap.

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