As usual brilliantly written. I love the way you look at things and break them down and in doing so, you teach. I grew up in Caribbean where a person's race was an adjective. It is a very old school way of speaking that in many islands still exists today especially with older folk. Conversations sound lke this ;
"Gyul, yuh know Lee...not Black Lee, not Chinese Lee or White Lee, you know...the one who have the Indian mother and the Chinese father...yes...from Belmont, Mix up Lee." OR you might hear, "I met this woman at church, a big woman (big meaning older mature woman) she is a nice, decent black woman....and she introduced me to this Filipina woman..." Can people not say I met a couple of lovely women in church? In the West Indies, you are clarified by your race sometimes and it is this labelling in the West Indies that drowns us. The N -word is still unfortunately used by all races and we have another age old nasty word for East Indian decendants too...it is the "other c - word". Racial profiling and words used in a derrogatory manner to describe a person because of their race must fall flat if we are to get rid of them. You are absolutely right .They must lose their meaning so as to never reach our tongues. I live in a small town in Ontario. My mixed-race sons have been called the N -word often. My older autistic boy actually taught his younger brother how to deal with it. Autistics just walk by. They have so much going on just to be able to handle things in a day, respondng to derrogatory comments is a waste of their time. People think they have no idea what is going on but they do no matter where they fall on the spectrum. They were together one day at a movie when two farm boys were in town and decided to demonstrate their backwardness. They used the word and my older boy with autism told his brother they should get popcorn and that he should keep his eyes on he menu. The word was said at least 3 times with my boys not even turning around. With no acknowledgement the farm boys faded away. I asked them how they incident made them feel and the autistic one said " They weren't talking to me. I'm autistic. My race is autistic" and my younger said it didn't upset him first because his brother was not upset or acknowledging the comments and secondly, in his opinion, that word applies to no one. Considering their sizes and strength I am glad they have learned to let insults fall flat and not talk back or use their fists to combat useless racist words.
