[Chris]

I don’t know if this addresses your question, but I thought I would share it to see what people think, and if anything like this has happened to anyone else. Reading the question caused a memory from grade school to resurface. When I was in early grade school, around the second grade, I used to hear the ‘n’ word on the playground. This was usually during lunch recess. At that time I didn’t know what the word meant; I just knew it was directed at black people. One day in school, a group of kids in my class was looking at a world map. We were trying to find country names we hadn’t heard before. During an inspection of the continent of Africa, I noticed the country of Niger. Being fairly young, I made the connection that the ‘n’ word stood for somebody who was from the country of Niger. At the time, I was quite proud of myself for having figured out the meaning of a word that I didn’t know. Well, you can imagine what happened when I used my newfound knowledge for the first time, which happened to be when a black friend of my mom’s came to visit. I simply walked up to her and said something along the line of, “How are you (n-word)?” Luckily, the woman didn’t lose her composure, but mom hit the roof. After mom calmed down, the woman asked where I got that word. I explained how I made the connection when I saw the map and how I was so happy to figure something out for myself. She explained what the word really meant and the context in which it is used most of the time. Thinking about this today, I can’t help but laugh. Children’s logic can be so simple sometimes. I should mention that I was in the second grade in 1972. I guess what I’m trying to say with this long-winded story about my experience is that, to me, the n-word means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. It may sound simple, but I really believe this.

User Detail :  

Name : Chris, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Lebanese, Religion : Catholic, Age : 35, City : Warren, State : MI, Country : United States, Occupation : Computer Programmer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, 

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