The strange career of a troublesome word

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me "Nigger".

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
- Countee Cullen, "Incident" (1925)

Teaching the N-Word: A black professor, an all-white class, and the thing nobody will see

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/nword-bernard.html


Some years back, a pastor said during a sermon: "Why should people discriminate against someone else based on the colour of his or her skin when red is the colour that flows under everyone's skin?"


Luke 2:29 (Simeon sees God's Salvation)

"Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,
According to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation
Which you have prepared before the face of all peoples,
A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel."