The minute she said it, the temperature in my classroom dropped. My students are usually laser-focused on me, but they shifted in their seats and looked away.
V trenutku, ko je izgovorila to, se je vzdušje v predavalnici spremenilo. Študenti me ponavadi zelo pozorno poslušajo, zdaj pa so se obotavljali na stolih in umikali poglede.
I'm a black woman who teaches the histories of race and US slavery. I'm aware that my social identity is always on display. And my students are vulnerable too, so I'm careful. I try to anticipate what part of my lesson might go wrong. But honestly, I didn't even see this one coming. None of my years of graduate school prepared me for what to do when the N-word entered my classroom.
Sem črnka, ki predava o zgodovini rase in suženjstvu v Ameriki. Zavedam se, da je moja družbena identiteta vedno vidna. Tudi moji študenti so izpostavljeni, zato sem previdna. Poskušam predvideti, kateri del predavanja bi lahko bil težaven, vendar iskreno rečeno -- tega sploh nisem pričakovala. Vsa leta študija me niso pripravila na scenarij, ko beseda na N (ang. Nigger = črnuh) prestopi prag predavalnice.
I was in my first year of teaching when the student said the N-word in my class. She was not calling anyone a name. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She came to class with her readings done, she sat in the front row and she was always on my team. When she said it, she was actually making a point about my lecture, by quoting a line from a 1970s movie, a comedy, that had two racist slurs. One for people of Chinese descent and the other the N-word. As soon as she said it, I held up my hands, said, "Whoa, whoa." But she assured me, "It's a joke from 'Blazing Saddles,'" and then she repeated it.
Bilo je prvo leto mojega poučevanja, ko je študentka med predavanjem izrekla besedo na N. Nikogar ni zmerjala. Bila je zelo motivirana študentka, na predavanja je prihajala pripravljena, sedela je v prvi vrsti in bila vedno na moji strani. Ko je izgovorila besedo na N, se je dejansko nanašala na moje predavanje, citirala je besede iz filma, komedije iz sedemdesetih, ki so vsebovale dve rasistični žaljivki. Ena se je nanašala na ljudi kitajskega porekla in druga je bila beseda na N. V trenutku, ko je to izgovorila, sem dvignila roke in rekla: "No, no." Vendar mi je zagotovila, da gre za šalo iz filma Vroča sedla (Blazing Saddles), in jo ponovila.
This all happened 10 years ago, and how I handled it haunted me for a long time. It wasn't the first time I thought about the word in an academic setting. I'm a professor of US history, it's in a lot of the documents that I teach. So I had to make a choice. After consulting with someone I trusted, I decided to never say it. Not even to quote it. But instead to use the euphemistic phrase, "the N-word." Even this decision was complicated. I didn't have tenure yet, and I worried that senior colleagues would think that by using the phrase I wasn't a serious scholar. But saying the actual word still felt worse.
To se je pripetilo pred desetimi leti in moj takratni odziv na to me je dolgo moril. Ni bilo prvič, da sem o tej besedi razmišljala v akademskem smislu. Sem namreč profesorica ameriške zgodovine in beseda se pogosto pojavlja v gradivu, ki ga predavam. Zato sem morala sprejeti odločitev. Po posvetu z osebo, ki ji zaupam, sem se odločila, da je nikoli ne izgovorim, niti da jo citiram. Odločila sem se za uporabo olepševalnice "beseda na N". A tudi ta odločitev mi je povzročala preglavice. Nisem še imela stalne profesure, zato me je skrbelo, da me bodo starejši sodelavci imeli za neresno akademikinjo zaradi uporabe olepševalne fraze. A uporaba prave besede se mi je bolj upirala.
The incident in my classroom forced me to publicly reckon with the word. The history, the violence, but also -- The history, the violence, but also any time it was hurled at me, spoken casually in front of me, any time it rested on the tip of someone's tongue, it all came flooding up in that moment, right in front of my students. And I had no idea what to do.
Pripetljaj v predavalnici me je prisil k soočenju z besedo v javnosti. Soočenju z zgodovino, z nasiljem, tudi z ... Z nasiljem, zgodovino pa tudi s trenutki, ko je bila namenjena meni, ko se je brezbrižno omenjala v moji navzočnosti, ko je bila nekomu na vrhu jezika. Vse je to me je prevzelo v tistem trenutku, naravnost pred mojimi študenti. In nisem imela pojma, kaj storiti.
So I've come to call stories like mine points of encounter. A point of encounter describes the moment you came face-to-face with the N-word. If you've even been stumped or provoked by the word, whether as the result of an awkward social situation, an uncomfortable academic conversation, something you heard in pop culture, or if you've been called the slur, or witnessed someone getting called the slur, you have experienced a point of encounter. And depending on who you are and how that moment goes down, you might have a range of responses. Could throw you off a little bit, or it could be incredibly painful and humiliating. I've had lots of these points of encounter in my life, but one thing is true. There's not a lot of space to talk about them.
Tako sem takšne zgodbe, kot je moja, poimenovala "trenutki soočanja". Trenutek soočanja opisuje trenutek, ko se neposredno srečaš z besedo na N. Če smo bili kdaj zbegani ali sprovocirani zaradi besede, denimo v kakšni nelagodni socialni situaciji, neprijetni akademski debati, zaradi nečesa, kar smo slišali v pop kulturi, če smo bili z besedo ozmerjani ali če smo bili priča zmerjanju s to žaljivko, smo doživeli "trenutek soočanja". Naš odziv na trenutek soočanja je odvisen od tega, kdo smo in kako se dogodek odvija. Lahko nas le rahlo vrže s tira ali pa je izkušnja izredno boleča in ponižujoča. V svojem življenju sem imela ogromno takšnih trenutkov soočanja, vendar eno drži -- ni veliko priložnosti za pogovor o le-teh.
That day in my classroom was pretty much like all of those times I had an uninvited run-in with the N-word. I froze. Because the N-word is hard to talk about. Part of the reason the N-word is so hard to talk about, it's usually only discussed in one way, as a figure of speech, we hear this all the time, right? It's just a word. The burning question that cycles through social media is who can and cannot say it. Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates does a groundbreaking job of defending the African American use of the word. On the other hand, Wendy Kaminer, a white freedom of speech advocate, argues that if we don't all just come and say it, we give the word power. And a lot of people feel that way. The Pew Center recently entered the debate. In a survey called "Race in America 2019," researchers asked US adults if they thought is was OK for a white person to say the N-word. Seventy percent of all adults surveyed said "never."
Tisti dan v predavalnici sem se počutila kot že mnogokrat, ko sem doživela neželeno soočenje z besedo na N. Zmrznila sem. Ker je težko govoriti o besedi na N. Delno je o besedi na N težko govoriti zato, ker se o njej navadno debatira le na en način -- kot o besedni figuri- To slišimo pogosto, kajne? Samo beseda je. Žgoče vprašanje, ki kroži po družbenih medijih je, kdo jo lahko izgovori in kdo ne. Temnopolti intelektualec Ta-Nehisi Coates premika meje z zagovarjanjem afroameriškega načina uporabe besede. Na drugi strani pa je Wendy Kaminer, belka, ki zagovarja svobodo govora, mnenja, da izogibanje uporabi besede daje sami besedi moč. In mnogi so istega mnenja. Nedavno se je razpravi pridružil javnomnenjski institut The Pew Center. V anketi z naslovom "Rasa v Ameriki 2019" so povprašali odrasle Američane, če se jim zdi sprejemljivo, da belci uporabljajo besedo na N. Sedemdeset odstotkov anketiranih je odgovorilo z "nikoli".
And these debates are important. But they really obscure something else. They keep us from getting underneath to the real conversation. Which is that the N-word is not just a word. It's not neatly contained in a racist past, a relic of slavery. Fundamentally, the N-word is an idea disguised as a word: that black people are intellectually, biologically and immutably inferior to white people. And -- and I think this is the most important part -- that that inferiority means that the injustice we suffer and inequality we endure is essentially our own fault. So, yes, it is ...
Takšne razprave so pomembne, vendar nam dejansko zatiskajo oči. Onemogočijo nam prodreti globlje v razpravo. Globlja razprava pa je, da beseda na N ni zgolj beseda. Ni prijetno vpeta v zgodovino rasizma kot nekakšen spominek na suženjstvo. V osnovi se za besedo na N skriva ideja: da smo temnopolti intelektualno, biološko in nespremenljivo manjvredni od belcev. In kar se mi zdi najpomembnejše -- ideja, da manjvrednost pomeni, da sta nepravičnost, ki jo doživljamo, in neenakost, ki jo prenašamo, pravzaprav naša lastna krivda. Ja, zato je ...
Speaking of the word only as racist spew or as an obscenity in hip hop music makes it sounds as if it's a disease located in the American vocal cords that can be snipped right out. It's not, and it can't. And I learned this from talking to my students.
Če besedo obravnavamo zgolj kot rasistično žaljivko ali vulgarizem v hiphopu, zveni kot bolezen v glasilkah Američanov, ki se lahko nemudoma preboli. Vendar ni bolezen in se ne preboli. In to sem se naučila iz pogovorov s študenti.
So next time class met, I apologized, and I made an announcement. I would have a new policy. Students would see the word in my PowerPoints, in film, in essays they read, but we would never ever say the word out loud in class. Nobody ever said it again. But they didn't learn much either. Afterwards, what bothered me most was that I didn't even explain to students why, of all the vile, problematic words in American English, why this particular word had its own buffer, the surrogate phrase "the N-word."
Zato sem se na naslednjem predavanju opravičila in objavila novost. Uvedla sem novo pravilo: študenti bodo besedo lahko videli na mojih predstavitvah v PowerPointu, v filmih in esejih, ki jih berejo, vendar se v predavalnici nikoli ne bo izgovarjala naglas. Nihče je nikoli več ni izgovoril. Vendar se na ta način niso naučili veliko. Kasneje me je najbolj motilo to, da študentom nisem razložila, zakaj ima prav ta beseda, od vseh prostaških, težavnih ameriških besed, nadomestno frazo "beseda na N", ki jo ublaži.
Most of my students, many of them born in the late 1990s and afterwards, didn't even know that the phrase "the N-word" is a relatively new invention in American English. When I was growing up, it didn't exist. But in the late 1980s, black college students, writers, intellectuals, more and more started to talk about racist attacks against them. But increasingly, when they told these stories, they stopped using the word. Instead, they reduced it to the initial N and called it "the N-word." They felt that every time the word was uttered it opened up old wounds, so they refused to say it. They knew their listeners would hear the actual word in their heads. That wasn't the point. The point was they didn't want to put the word in their own mouths or into the air. By doing this, they made an entire nation start to second-guess themselves about saying it. This was such a radical move that people are still mad about it. Critics accuse those of us who use the phrase "the N-word," or people who become outraged, you know, just because the word is said, of being overprincipled, politically correct or, as I just read a couple of weeks ago in The New York Times, "insufferably woke." Right?
Večina mojih študentov, ki je rojenih večinoma konec devetdesetih in kasneje, ni niti vedela, da je fraza "beseda na N" relativno nova v ameriški angleščini. V času mojega odraščanja še ni obstajala. A konec osemdesetih so temnopolti študenti, pisatelji in intelektualci vedno glasneje opozarjali na rasistične napade, ki so jih doživljali. In med razkrivanjem svojih zgodb so se vedno bolj izogibali uporabi te besede. Namesto prave besede so uporabljali zgolj začetnico N in jo poimenovali "beseda na N". Zdelo se jim je, da je beseda vsakič, ko je bila izgovorjena, odprla stare rane, zato je niso želeli več uporabljati. Vedeli so, da bodo njihovi poslušalci v glavah slišali pravo besedo. Njihov cilj ni bil, da je ne bi. Cilj je bil, da se beseda ne pojavi več v njihovih lastnih ustih ali v zraku. S tem so celoten narod spodbudili k temu, da so začeli premišljevati, ali bi besedo uporabljali. To je bil tako radikalen korak, da se ljudje še vedno razburjajo glede tega. Kritiki vidijo nas, ki uporabljamo frazo "beseda na N", in ljudi, ki se razburijo zgolj ob omembi besede, kot pretirano načelne, politično korektne ali, kot sem pred kratkim prebrala v časopisu The New York Times, kot "pretirano na preži". Ni res?
So I bought into this a little bit too, which is why the next time I taught the course I proposed a freedom of speech debate. The N-word in academic spaces, for or against? I was certain students would be eager to debate who gets to say it and who doesn't. But they weren't. Instead ... my students started confessing. A white student from New Jersey talked about standing by as a black kid at her school got bullied by this word. She did nothing and years later still carried the guilt. Another from Connecticut talked about the pain of severing a very close relationship with a family member, because that family member refused to stop saying the word.
Vse to je nekoliko pritegnilo tudi mojo pozornost, zato sem na naslednjem predavanju pozvala k razpravi o svobodi govora. Beseda na N v akademskih krogih -- za ali proti? Bila sem prepričana, da se bo vnela vroča razprava o tem, kdo besedo lahko uporablja in kdo ne. Vendar se ni. Namesto tega ... so študenti začeli odkrivati svoje zgodbe. Študentka iz New Jerseyja, belka, je razkrila, da je bila v šoli priča zmerjanju temnopoltega otroka z besedo na N in ni storila čisto nič. Še leta zatem jo je pekla vest. Drugi študent iz Connecticuta je spregovoril o boleči zaostritvi odnosa z družinskim članom, s katerim sta si bila zelo blizu, saj le-ta ni želel prenehati z uporabo te besesede.
One of the most memorable stories came from a very quiet black student from South Carolina. She didn't understand all the fuss. She said everyone at her school said the word. She wasn't talking about kids calling each other names in the hall. She explained that at her school when teachers and administrators became frustrated with an African American student, they called that student the actual N-word. She said it didn't bother her at all. But then a couple of days later, she came to visit me in my office hours and wept. She thought she was immune. She realized that she wasn't.
Ena najbolj osupljivih zgodb je zgodba tihe temnopolte študentke iz Južne Karoline. Ni razumela, zakaj se dviga toliku prahu glede tega. Na njeni šoli so besedo uporabljali vsi. V mislih ni imela otrok, ki se zmerjajo na hodnikih. Razložila je, da so učitelji in drugi nadrejeni na njeni šoli dejansko nagovorili temnopolte dijake s to besedo, če so jih le-ti vrgli s tira. Rekla je, da je to ni motilo. Čez nekaj dni pa je objokana prišla na mojo govorilno uro. Mislila je, da ji to ne pride do živega, in dojela, da temu ni tako.
Over the last 10 years, I have literally heard hundreds of these stories from all kinds of people from all ages. People in their 50s remembering stories from the second grade and when they were six, either calling people the word or being called the word, but carrying that all these years around this word, you know. And as I listened to people talk about their points of encounter, the pattern that emerged for me as a teacher that I found most upsetting is the single most fraught site for these points of encounter is the classroom.
V preteklih desetih letih sem slišala dobesedno na stotine takšnih zgodb od najrazličnejših ljudi vseh starosti. Petdesetletniki so se spominjali zgodb iz drugega razreda ali ko so bili stari šest, kako so zmerjali druge s to besedo ali bili zmerjani, kar jih je bremenilo še leta in leta. Med poslušanjem ljudi, ki so govorili o svojih trenutkih soočanja z besedo na N, me je kot profesorico najbolj vznemirjal vzorec, ki se je pojavil: najbolj napeto prizorišče za takšne trenutke soočanja je učilnica.
Most US kids are going to meet the N-word in class. One of the most assigned books in US high schools is Mark Twain’s "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in which the word appears over 200 times. And this isn't an indictment of "Huck Finn." The word is in lots of US literature and history. It's all over African American literature. Yet I hear from students that when the word is said during a lesson without discussion and context, it poisons the entire classroom environment. The trust between student and teacher is broken. Even so, many teachers, often with the very best of intentions, still say the N-word in class. They want to show and emphasize the horrors of US racism, so they rely on it for shock value. Invoking it brings into stark relief the ugliness of our nation's past. But they forget the ideas are alive and well in our cultural fabric.
Večina ameriških otrok se z besedo na N sreča v razredu. Ena najbolj obravnavanih knjig v ameriških srednjih šolah je knjiga Marka Twaina Dogodivščine Huckleberry Finna, v kateri se beseda pojavi več kot dvestokrat. S tem ne kritiziram knjige. Beseda se pogosto pojavlja v ameriški literaturi in zgodovini, je vseprisotna v afroameriški literaturi. Vendar s strani študentov slišim, da ko se beseda izgovori med predavanjem brez razprave in konteksta, popolnoma uniči vzdušje v predavalnici. Zaupanje med študenti in profesorjem je porušeno. Kljub temu številni profesorji, sicer z najboljšim namenom, še vedno pogosto izgovarjajo besedo na N med poučevanjem. Želijo predstaviti in poudariti grozote rasizma v ZDA, zato jo uporabljajo kot sredstvo za vzbujanje šoka. Sklicevanje nanjo zelo nazorno oriše grdoto zgodovine našega naroda. Vendar pozabljajo, da so te ideje še kako žive v naši kulturi.
The six-letter word is like a capsule of accumulated hurt. Every time it is said, every time, it releases into the atmosphere the hateful notion that black people are less. My black students tell me that when the word is quoted or spoken in class, they feel like a giant spotlight is shining on them. One of my students told me that his classmates were like bobbleheads, turning to gauge his reaction. A white student told me that in the eighth grade, when they were learning "To Kill a Mockingbird" and reading it out loud in class, the student was stressed out at the idea of having to read the word, which the teacher insisted all students do, that the student ended up spending most of the unit hiding out in the bathroom.
Ta beseda s šestimi črkami je kot puška, nabita z nakopičeno bolečino. Vsakič, ko je izrečena, vsakič, ko se puška sproži, izstreli v zrak sovražno idejo, da smo črnci manjvredni. Moji temnopolti študenti mi pravijo, da se, ko je beseda citirana ali izrečena v predavalnici, počutijo kot pod ogromnim žarometom. Eden od študentov mi je povedal, da so bili njegovi sošolci tako otročji, da so se obračali proti njemu, da bi videli njegov odziv ob omembi besede. Svetlopolti študent mi je povedal, da je bil v osmem razredu, ko so obravnavali knjigo Ubiti ptico oponašalko in jo brali naglas, tako pod pritiskom, ker bi moral prebrati besedo, pri čemer je učitelj vztrajal, da morajo vsi, da se je večino ure skrival v kopalnici.
This is serious. Students across the country talk about switching majors and dropping classes because of poor teaching around the N-word. The issue of faculty carelessly speaking the word has reached such a fevered pitch, it's led to protests at Princeton, Emory, The New School, Smith College, where I teach, and Williams College, where just recently students have boycotted the entire English Department over it and other issues. And these were just the cases that make the news. This is a crisis. And while student reaction looks like an attack on freedom of speech, I promise this is an issue of teaching.
Gre za resno zadevo. Študenti po celi državi se odločajo za zamenjavo specializacije in izostajanje od pouka zaradi pomanjkljivega načina poučevanja glede besede na N. Problem brezbrižne uporabe besede v akademskih krogih je na samem vrhuncu. Povzročil je proteste na univerzah v Princetonu in Emoryju, na univerzi The New School, na kolidžu Smith, kjer predavam, in kolidžu Williams, na katerem so študenti pred kratkim bojkotirali celoten oddelek za angleščino zaradi uporabe besede na N in drugih težav. In to so samo primeri, ki so medijsko znani. To je kriza. Odzivi študentov se zdijo kot napad na svobodo govora, vendar gre za problem v načinu poučevanju.
My students are not afraid of materials that have the N-word in it. They want to learn about James Baldwin and William Faulkner and about the civil rights movement. In fact, their stories show that this word is a central feature of their lives as young people in the United States. It's in the music they love. And in the popular culture they emulate, the comedy they watch, it's in TV and movies and memorialized in museums. They hear it in locker rooms, on Instagram, in the hallways at school, in the chat rooms of the video games they play. It is all over the world they navigate. But they don't know how to think about it or even really what the word means.
Moji študenti nimajo težav z gradivom, v katerem se pojavlja beseda na N. Želijo se učiti o Jamesu Baldwinu in Williamu Faulkneru in o gibanju za državljanske pravice. Pravzaprav so njihove zgodbe tiste, ki kažejo, da igra ta beseda osrednjo vlogo v njihovih mladostniških letih v Združenih državah. Je v glasbi, ki jo radi poslušajo, v popularni kulturi, ki jo posnemajo, v komedijah, ki jih gledajo, na televiziji, v filmih in je spominsko obeležena v muzejih. Slišijo jo v garderobah, na Instagramu, na šolskih hodnikih, v klepetalnicah videoigric, ki jih igrajo. Je vsepovsod v njihovem svetu. Vendar ne vedo, kako naj razmišljajo o besedi ali kaj ta beseda sploh pomeni.
I didn't even really understand what the word meant until I did some research. I was astonished to learn that black people first incorporated the N-word into the vocabulary as political protest, not in the 1970s or 1980s but as far back as the 1770s. And I wish I had more time to talk about the long, subversive history of the black use of the N-word. But I will say this: Many times, my students will come up to me and say, "I understand the virulent roots of this word, it's slavery." They are only partially right. This word, which existed before it became a slur, but it becomes a slur at a very distinct moment in US history, and that's as large numbers of black people begin to become free, starting in the North in the 1820s. In other words, this word is fundamentally an assault on black freedom, black mobility, and black aspiration.
Tudi sama nisem resnično razumela pomena beseda, dokler je nisem nekoliko raziskala. Presenečeno sem ugotovila, da so temnopolti ljudje besedo na N prvič dodali v besedišče kot politični protest. Ne v sedemdesetih ali osemdesetih 20. stoletja, vendar že v sedemdesetih letih 18. stoletja. Žal nimam veliko časa za pogovor o dolgi in prevratni zgodovini afroameriške uporabe besede na N. A rekla bom eno: moji študenti bodo rekli, da razumejo krut izvor besede, da gre za suženjstvo. A le delno imajo prav. Beseda je obstajala preden je postala žaljivka, a žaljivka je postala v izredno odločilnem trenutku ameriške zgodovine, ko so se številni temnopolti začeli osvobajati suženjstva, na začetku dvajsetih let 19. stoletja na severu. Drugače rečeno: ta beseda je v osnovi napad na črnsko svobodo, črnsko mobilnost in črnska prizadevanja.
Even now, nothing so swiftly unleashes an N-word tirade as a black person asserting their rights or going where they please or prospering. Think of the attacks on Colin Kaepernick when he kneeled. Or Barack Obama when he became president. My students want to know this history. But when they ask questions, they're shushed and shamed. By shying away from talking about the N-word, we have turned this word into the ultimate taboo, crafting it into something so tantalizing, that for all US kids, no matter their racial background, part of their coming of age is figuring out how to negotiate this word. We treat conversations about it like sex before sex education. We're squeamish, we silence them. So they learn about it from misinformed friends and in whispers.
Celo dandanes nič ne sproži tako hitro tirade o besedi na N kot črnec, ki se bori za svoje pravice, ali okoliščine, v katerih gre temnopoltim dobro. Spomnite se napadov na nogometaša Colina Kaepernicka, ko je pokleknil, ali na Baracka Obamo, ko je postal predsednik. Moji študenti se želijo učiti o tej zgodovini. A ko postavljajo vprašanja, so utišani ali osramočeni. Z izogibanjem pogovoru o besedi na N smo besedo spremenili v popoln tabu, dali smo ji moč, da nas spravi v takšno negotovost, da pri vseh otrocih v Ameriki, ne glede na to, katere rase so, del odraščanja zaznamuje ugotavljanje, kako se spopasti s to besedo. Pogovore o tem obravnavamo kot pogovor o seksu pred spolno vzgojo. Ne prenesemo jih, zatremo jih. Zato se otroci o besedi učijo na skrivaj in od prijateljev brez pravih informacij.
I wish I could go back to the classroom that day and push through my fear to talk about the fact that something actually happened. Not just to me or to my black students. But to all of us. You know, I think we're all connected by our inability to talk about this word. But what if we explored our points of encounter and did start to talk about it?
Želim si, da bi se lahko vrnila v predavalnico tistega dne in premagala svoj strah ter spregovorila o tem, da se je dejansko nekaj zgodilo. Ne samo meni ali mojim temnopoltim študentom, temveč vsem nam. Mislim, da nas vse povezuje ravno to, da ne zmoremo govoriti o tej besedi. Kaj pa če bi razmislili o naših trenutkih soočanja in začeli govoriti o tem?
Today, I try to create the conditions in my classroom to have open and honest conversations about it. One of those conditions -- not saying the word. We're able to talk about it because it doesn't come into the classroom. Another important condition is I don't make my black students responsible for teaching their classmates about this. That is my job. So I come prepared. I hold the conversation with a tight rein, and I'm armed with knowledge of the history. I always ask students the same question: Why is talking about the N-word hard? Their answers are amazing. They're amazing. More than anything though, I have become deeply acquainted with my own points of encounter, my personal history around this word. Because when the N-word comes to school, or really anywhere, it brings with it all of the complicated history of US racism. The nation's history and my own, right here, right now. There's no avoiding it.
Danes poskušam med predavanji ustvariti pogoje, da lahko odprto in iskreno govorimo o tem. Eden od teh pogojev je, da besede ne izrečemo. Zmožni smo govoriti o njej, ker se med predavanjem ne izreče. Naslednji pomemben pogoj je, da ne poskušam spodbujati temnopoltih študentov, da učijo svoje sošolce o tem. To je moja naloga. Zato se vedno pripravim. Predavanje poteka po strogem protokolu in oborožena sem z znanjem iz zgodovine. Študentom vedno zastavim isto vprašanje: zakaj je tako težko govoriti o besedi na N? Njihovi odgovori so neverjetni. Neverjetni so. Predvsem pa sem se dobro seznanila s svojimi lastnimi trenutki soočanja, z mojo osebno zgodovino, povezano s to besedo. Ker se beseda na N pojavlja v šolah in resnično vsepovsod, prinaša s seboj vso težavno zgodovino ameriškega rasizma. Zgodovino naroda in mojo lastno zgodovino, tukaj in zdaj. Ne izogibajmo se je.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)