The “N” Word Explained To White And Black People
By: J.J. Edwards
Tags: Race, Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Education, Politics

Photo by Oliver Ragfelt on Unsplash

At age six I realized I was — and still am — black. It was the day I found out about racism.

You see, I grew up in a small town in the middle of Italy. Barely 2500 people — most of them above age 50.

Me and my family of 4, the only black people in town.

We moved there from Lagos, Nigeria. No one cared about the color of my skin until…

Cacca! Cacca!

That means “poop” in Italian.

I didn’t know that at the time.

The teacher introduced me to the class.

I told them my name.

After one or two minutes of silence, one blonde kid called Giacomo points at me and screams.

“Cacca! CACCA!”

The class burst into laughter.

I didn’t know what it meant so I smiled. Maybe “cacca” was a nickname, like when you call your friend Burpee because of that time he burped for 5 minutes straight.

I later asked my mom what that meant. After a internet search we found out and my heart sunk.

That was racism.

Soon I’d forget about that episode, the same way you forget about an argument with a girlfriend. In fact, over the next ten years of school, those people would become my best friends.

I learned, they expected me to be like the black guys on TV: funny, loud, entertaining.

They wanted me to be Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith… So I, extremely shy kid from Nigeria, became a stereotype.

Every time they made jokes about my skin, I’d laugh and add to the joke.

When they asked, “Why don’t you go back to your country…?” I laughed and say Italy was my country.

My identity was gone…

Americans Suck

You guys really do.

America has the perception that “black” is an equivalent of culture.

Being black means you speak a certain way, behave a certain way, do certain things.

It’s funny to me when I hear people say that a white person is trying to “act black” because if you asked what being “black” meant, they’d struggle to explain.

There are more black people around the world than in America, each with their own culture.

Now, I understand it’s a slavery thing and I don’t want to get into that but, because of America’s influence on the world, the American idea of a “black” person has been spread worldwide.

My little corner of Italy became a nightmare after hip-hop music became popular.

Kanye West and Jay Z couldn’t go 10 bars without saying the “N” word once.

In few years, the Migos gained worldwide fame, and movies like Straight Outta Compton being worldwide successes, the “N” word became cool to say among black people.

At 15, me and the few black friends I had made in high school — far from my small village — started calling ourselves that.

Our white friends got curious…

Why Can’t White People Say It?

Me and my group of black friends spent hours struggling to explain it to my best friend Vale.

He was part of the kids who called me “poop” on my first day of school. In time, we bonded through our shared love of Star Wars and videogames.

He came with me to meet my black friends after school and he had the teenage audacity to call us (me and the black group) his “Nig-” You know the word.

I was shocked, confused, speechless.

More adept friends spoke up, telling him he couldn’t say the word because he was white.

‘Why can’t white people say it?’

The worse part about his question was that it made sense for him to ask. Why weren’t white people allowed to say it?

Our group of 7–10 black African boys stood paralyzed without an answer.

You see, we only knew white people couldn’t say it but no one had ever told us why.

Although Vale agreed to avoid using the word, he didn’t understand.

We left together. On our way home, he asked if he could call me the “N” word.

He had been my best friend for years, and probably the most chill person I knew, so I allowed him.

From then on, Vale would sprinkle the word here and there, nothing that really bothered me.

Some of my white friends saw Vale use the “N” word with me and began doing the same…