My nephew is Black and when someone called him the “N-Word” on the streets of Boston, I was surprised how angry I got, it really pissed me off.

More of the invective that was used in his voice than the word itself.

I’ve been sworn at “racially” and same thing... not so much the word, but the anger and intent behind its use.

People can be real shit.

Nephew is an MIT graduate who went on to get his doctorate at Stanford and is now quite successful working in his field... as a Bio chem engineer, or something of that nature.

quote:

Originally posted by BillyBonesNY:
My nephew is Black and when someone called him the “N-Word” on the streets of Boston, I was surprised how angry I got, it really pissed me off.

More of the invective that was used in his voice than the word itself.

I’ve been sworn at “racially” and same thing... not so much the word, but the anger and intent behind its use.

People can be real shit.

Nephew is an MIT graduate who went on to get his doctorate at Stanford and is now quite successful working in his field... as a Bio chem engineer, or something of that nature.

As supposedly woke and liberal Boston is, there are some strong racial divides here going back four and five generations in some neighborhoods. Busing fueled those flames in the 1970’s and a segment of that populace still exists in some of the stronger ethnic neighborhoods. There’s 3-4 neighborhoods where that can still happen today. Even white on white racial slurs.

Am a mixed bag 'murican mutt; mostly Scottish and French with an English surname. .. thinking about it, none of these groups get along very well, either.

Add to that, a very very small family, so ended up adopting most of my relatives, which is nice as you can choose.

Aunt and uncle, whom i had known my entire life were also adopted fortunately.

He was the Cannon of the cathedral where i had been baptized and she was the first woman to graduate from Wayne State Medical School in Detroit.

It was a Sunday morning and i was standing with the choir before the service was to begin, 1960s, i must have been seven or eight at the time.

My aunt was hurrying in to join the congregation and upon seeing her, i called out, "hi Aunt Marge!"

One of my choir-mates, looked at me and said, "she can't be your aunt." i said, "why not?" "'Cuz she's black!"

"What's that got to do with it?," i retorted emphatically and apparently took enough umbrage that i proceeded to knock his big, black ass on the ground.

His parents found out and were mortified by their kid's behavior.

It did have the after effect of improving our friendship.

The last physical altercation I was in back in my youth was because a black guy tried to get my attention by yelling, "hey, white boy!"
I yelled back, "What do you want, black boy?"
He decided that was enough to take a swing at me.

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It did have the after effect of improving our friendship.

Those were the good old days. Some of my best friendships growing up began as schoolyard fights. We ran our mouths a bit, rolled around on the ground and made each other eat dirt, and then that was it. We got it out of our systems and ended up being best friends for years afterwards. I'm not sure why it went down like that...maybe some subliminal masculine thing about testing each other and establishing mutual respect...but it worked.

My parents weren't fans of fighting, and if they'd known I would have gotten my butt beat, but they also wouldn't have made a federal case out of it and called the cops, either, which seems like happens on almost a daily basis anymore. If only things were still so simple.

Thanks for reading my post, 92

Yes, would that things were still so simple.

My dearest little brother in Christ and i started off that way, too. Not with rolling on the ground and fisticuffs rather we were working together and we had a number of "interactions" testing each other in the same manner resulting in a friendship that has endured despite our no longer being at the same company and now living in different states... he's now even a member here

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
<<snip>>
Perhaps white people know that they can't get away with racial insults?

I suspect you hit the nail on the head with this! Let a "person of color" use racial epithets and they get a free pass; let a white person do it and the world comes to an end!