- I think if a white person says it, it's racist.
- I heard him behind my back say,
"Oh, we better hide everything
before the nigger steals everyting."
- Like the N word and how that has changed
and evolved through our time.
- It's very cool, very popular now,
in New York City for white kids to say the N word
as, like, a joke.
Not actually calling someone the N word,
but just, like, saying it.
Like, "Yo, what's up, my N word."
Like that kinda thing.
- Do you walk around saying that word all the time?
- Not all the time.
- You say it sometimes?
Like as a joke, or?
- Yeah, but I try not to. - Like in what context?
In what context? - But my friends do.
- Nigger is a strong word
that's actually losing strength but gaining importance.
It's used freely,
but
it's not a free word.
- Like people in school, they'll say like,
"Nigga this, nigga that."
Like that's, like, a big thing that people say.
But it's not, like, I find it, like,
I wouldn't want, like if I was black,
I don't think I'd wanna be called that.
- I say the word,
But it's never,
I don't,
use it with meaning.
- I never really feel, like, normal using the N word.
It always feels kinda weird.
Just 'cause you can't help but think
about the connotation that the word used to have.
- If it's not an insult, I won't address it.
If someone's like, "Hey, my nigga, wassup?"
I'll be like, "What's up, man?"
But if you're like, "You're an ignorant nigger"
Then that'll be a problem.
(police sirens)
- What's the most times you've heard it in a day?
- Maybe ten times a day.
- Like a hundred times, easy.
- A hundred times?
(students talking over eachother)
- Two hundred and thirty five.
- [Eddie] Two hundred and thirty five times a day?
- That's pretty modest though, like,
- Anybody top 235?
(laughs)
- We go to the same school, we get, like,
a good thousand, like every two classes.
- You would seriously say that you think a thousand times?
- At, like, at our school, that's, like, regular English.
Like you see somebody, like that's your nigger.
That's like, plain and simple.
- [Eddie] I understand that.
We'll talk about that more.
- There are a lot of kids hearing nigger, digesting nigger,
every day in the twenty first century.
White kids.
And nobody's asking questions about that.
What happens to you if you listen to a song, a rap song,
or watch a piece of a movie, on the way to school,
or when you wake up before school,
and you hear nigger a hundred times?
- If y'all could just, the best you can,
relax your mind, alright?
This is a visualization exercise,
and I need you to have a clear mind in order to participate
in this visualization exercise, okay?
So, with your minds clear,
your eyes closed,
I say to you, "A nigger just walked through the door."
So I want you to think about the picture
that comes into your head when I say to you,
"A nigger just walked through the door."
Alright, grab that picture.
Great, alright, open your eyes.
In one word, if you could describe that picture,
what would it look like?
- [Random Male Student] Somebody saggin'.
- [Eddie] Saggin'?
You know what that spells backwards, right?
Okay, great, I always like to point that out.
What was the other one?
- [Random Female Student] Ghetto.
- [Eddie] Ghetto.
- [Random Female Student] Like (indistinct).
- [Random Male Student] Like, somebody who's like,
sagging their pants, drinkin' liquor, and loitering.
- [Eddie] So, kind of like, a gangster look?
- [Random Male Student] Yeah, exactly.
- [Eddie] Okay, okay, alright great.
What else? - I didn't see any of that.
- [Eddie] Say that again? - Kunta.
- [Eddie] Kunta?
- [Previous Student] From Roots.
- [Eddie] Okay.
- [Previous Student] That's what I saw.
- [Eddie] Alright, great.
Alright, anything else?
One word.
- [Random student] I saw you.
- [Eddie] Wow.
(nervous laughs)
- [Eddie] What else?
What else?
One word.
- [Random Student] Tall.
- [Eddie] Tall, okay.
(more laughs)
- So I think there's a real concern for me
when kids are consuming it so much that they really begin
to lose the historical impact of that word.
Here's my question, y'all, I have a two year old.
When do I tell him he's gonna hear nigger in America?
- [Random Male Student] You don't have to tell him.
- [Random Male Student] Yeah, society will tell him.
- [Eddie] Yeah, he's a balla, he's a balla.
- Is he a halfie?
- [Eddie] Oh, wow.
- [Random Student] Oh my gosh, Martha.
(students talking over one another)
- [Eddie] Wow, okay.
- [Random Student] That's not a word.
- That's a word, and I created it,
and I own the copyrights to that word.
- [Eddie] Uh, um.
- Everyone I know says that word, so I don't know why you,
- You should run that by a few more people
before you use it again publicly.
Okay, let me, let me move to
something else for you to think about.
I've been doing this for about ten years now.
Ten years I've been doing this exercise, this workshop.
And here are the things that I normally get from people.
Okay?
So you can take a look and see how consistent,
or how connected,
yours are to what we see there.
Most people think that because they don't say "nigger,"
they are progressive people.
What's more important to me is the fact that
when you hear nigger, you see my picture.
Meaning a black man.
Now people wonder, "Well why can they say it,
why can't I say it?"
You know, they're asking these kind of
superficial questions that really kind of bother me.
I'm not saying that's not an important question to ask,
but I'm trying to get at the source of nigger.
Anybody want to grapple with the source of nigger?
- My picture of the word nigger came from, like,
the slavery days.
Like, playing out nigger in the fields type word.
- I don't see race behind that word,
I just see it as, like, a really dumb person.
You can be a black nigga or you can be a white nigger.
- I actually saw my black friend, who, like
cause for and him, the word nigger is just a joke.
Because he would walk into my house, come up to me,
and just say, "You nigger."
And we'd just kinda, make a joke out of
that entire idea of what the word is.
- [Eddie] So you think nigga's a joke?
- Kind of, I suppose that's how it's come out for me.
- Can I branch off that?
You wanna go first?
- You can go.
- Well, with me, like, the word has too much power.
It's stupid, so why not make fun of it
for the stupidity that it is?
- Because you can die, that's why.
- From what?
- [Eddie] There are people who hold this
as the way they see you!
Like, it doesn't matter how you articulate.
It doesn't matter what degree you get.
It doesn't matter how hard you study.
It doesn't matter how many books you read.
It won't matter.
The only thing they see when they see you, is that.
And the way they see you,
and that kid doesn't make it home from the store.
- So are you saying that a man dressed like yourself?
- [Eddie] Yes.
- Like a well-dressed man could get their life taken away
because of the image of sagging.
'Cause I don't think you're sagging right now.
- If I ride my bike wearing this.
If I go to the gym wearing this.
If it sleep in my bed wearing this.
Like, the way that you're saying for me to be safe,
is to dress like this?
- [Previous Female Student] No, I'm not saying that.
- You're talking about how you've never seen
a black man dressed in, like, a suit get shot.
You've only see a black guy dressed in, like,
a hoodie get shot.
But have you ever seen a white guy in a hoodie
get shot by a cop, or a white guy on the street,
because they thought he was a danger?
No.
- It's amazing to me how it still has a relevance today.
Because I ask y'all,
"A nigger just walked through the door?"
And you gave me the same description
if I would've asked this of a Klans group.
(students talking over eachother)
- [Eddie] Huh?
- That would be interesting to see
what a Klans meeting would say about this.
- [Eddie] Well, how would it be different?
- Why are you getting so mad?
- If, okay, I am not a Klanswoman.
I'm not a klans person.
I have no relation to anyone in the Klan, ever!
Never!
And I don't know why I'm being associated
with someone who thinks like the Klan.
- I don't think that anybody
is calling anybody here a Klansman.
Right?
And nobody's attacking anybody.
I think that there's a difference
between the way that you see the way that you use the word,
and the way that you see the way other people use the word.
But I think that the point he's trying to make,
is that it's irrelevant.
- The thing is, most people think
because they don't say nigger,
then they don't believe nigger.
What I'm saying to you,
it doesn't matter if you don't say nigger.
It don't even matter what your perspective
is on nigger.
If you don't understand how nigger is like pollution,
it's like being in a polluted neighborhood.
Like, your house may not have the actual,
be constructed on the pollution,
but if you live in a neighborhood
where you still digest it?
- So what are you proposing we do then?
Like, what is the solution here?
Like, just not think of black people
and nigger in the same thought?
- I mean, what a white person has to do
is different than what you have to do.
I can't diagnose a simple kind of solution
to everybody that works for everybody in the same way.
So the other thing is to have conversations about nigger.
Not necessarily asking people if you can say nigger,
why they say nigger.
But asking them, is nigger still in their frame?
Silence doesn't work.
- [Multiple Students] Yeah.
- Everyone was kinda like, "Whoa, whoa, you can't say that."
I guess I can kinda see how that could be,
how that could be seen as rude.
But it wasn't, like, intentionally trying
to be mean or anything, or racist.
I was just saying, like the first black person I saw,
he was talking, and he just came into my mind,
and that's what I saw.
- Hey! - Hi!
(mumbles)
- Sorry, how are you?
- Good, how are you?
- I just can't stop thinking about Sasha.
Like, when he said that to Eddie,
I was just like, ugh!
- Yeah.
- It just like, I feel like that's so rude.
And like, he doesn't have the, okay, like,
you can say it, right?
But, like, I feel like he doesn't have the place
to, like, say that.
- [Other Girl] I know.
- Okay, and honestly, like, I'm going to make a confession.
In ninth grade, like, it was my word.
Like I, like, said it all the time.
In ninth grade I was, like, weird.
But, like, I said it a lot.
- To everyone?
- Yeah, to, like, my friends.
I wouldn't like say it out, I would say it out loud,
but like, only to my friends.
Or it would be, like, we would, like, make spinoffs,
this is really bad.
We would be like, "Aw, like, little niglet."
Like, "what you doing?"
- Oh, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
- And then, like, people were, like, "You can't say that."
Like, da da da.
And I was like, "Whatever, like, whatever nigger."
Like, "Fuck you."
But then I, like, grew up.
Like, grew up in, like, one year.
Two years.
And then, I'm just like, I have such a different view on it.
And, like, I'm so, like, ashamed of myself
for doing that. - Yeah
- And I'm just like, "Why were you like that?"
Like, so disrespectful.
(upbeat music)
- Tonight, I am in my house
with three of the other people from the workshop.
And they're gonna fill me in on what I missed last time.
- Basically, we talked about, um, the N word.
And how it affects people around you.
And where it came from.
And what does it mean to other people.
- We were saying, like, we found the word,
like the depth of the word, it has too much power
behind the word.
So that word causes too much mayhem by itself.
Like, it's a word.
So he was like, "Why not make fun of it?"
You know what, screw the word, whatever.
- But it's not a whatever thing.
- For my personal use, for that person, to address,
- But what if someone sees you as that, though?
- The way they see me? - Then it is your issue, no?
- I know, but that is not something I can address
by seeing the word a certain way, like
- But I think that's his point, I think
what he was kind of trying to say is that,
People use the N word and black synonymously at this point,
and so if someone, even if you are educated,
and if you, you know, come walking down the street
in a suit and tie.
And you have a degree from Harvard, whatever,
but somebody has it in their head
that black and the N word are the same thing,
and their definition of the N word
is the word that we described, you know,
hoodlum, saggin', gonna hurt me, whatever.
Then that's why he's saying that you're gonna die.
Because they don't care if you have a suit and tie,
they see you as that just because you're black.
Because the N word and black are the same thing.
That's what he's saying, I think.
- And that, when, a person like George Zimmerman
hears the word nigger, the picture next to the word nigger
for him is somebody who looked like Trayvon Martin.
That's why Trayvon Martin is dead.
(music)
- If society sees someone who could be dangerous,
and someone who is less than,
then those people are going to act against me,
whether I believe in the word nigger or not.
Happens all the time.
I had just gotten out of school,
me and another friend decided we're gonna
go get pizza and soda and just go to the park.
So we're standing there, and, like, a cop car rolls over,
and they hopped out and was like,
"Can you empty your pockets?"
"Sure."
Took my phone out, took my schoolwork out,
took my pencils, pens, and the Sharpie out.
Put it on my schoolwork, and he was like,
"Hold on a second."
I was like, "What?"
He's like, "Oh, you can't have this."
"Why?"
"Oh, because people do graffiti with this."
I'm in a park by a tree, what am I gonna tag a tree?
Like, what am I gonna do?
"Okay, I'm gonna write you a summons for the Sharpie."
I'm like, "You're really gonna write me a ticket
for a Sharpie?
He's like, "Yeah, I have to."
The fine was only fifteen dollars,
but I was like, "I'm not paying that!"
So we go to court, the lawyer they gave me
told me my court date was the day after my court date.
So the day before I had to go court,
found out I had a warrant.
We went to court the next day,
and they called me up,
the judge looked at the paper,
and was like, "Alright, two hundred dollars."
And my mother pulled up my transcript and said,
"Look, he goes to a music and arts school.
He needs markers and things like that."
And so the judge looks at it for a while and says,
"You know what, throw it out."
I had to miss a day of school for that.
I had a near flawless attendance record.
I do get upset, but I don't let it, like,
anger me to the point where I'm like,
"Oh my God, I hate this."
'Cause then that ends up making you ashamed of who you are.
I will never be ashamed of who I am.
I'm proud to be black.
Ain't nothing wrong with being black.
But,
I feel like they should be ashamed.
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