The N Word and the Jungle on Wheels

Someone recently asked me if my son has had to deal with any race-related issues so far in his life.  I thought about it for a moment and then responded that he hasn’t had to deal with any overt issues that I know of.

I think it was the next evening that he told me a kid in the neighborhood had called him “the n word.”  He actually said the word, but I don’t even feel right writing it.  Anyway, it happened at a neighborhood park and he didn’t know the kids name, so there was nothing I could do about it.

Then, today, only a few weeks later, he called me at work.  He had just gotten home from school and called to tell me that some kids were picking on him on the bus.  He had gotten in an argument with  a fellow 6th grader.  It had somehow escalated to the point where 7th and 8th graders on the bus jumped in and were threatening to beat him up (?) and encouraging him and this other kid to go fight behind the local elementary school near our house. 

The details of these stories tend to be a bit fuzzy, but one thing thing he said wasn’t: one of the older kids had called him a nigger.  Needless to say, this is unacceptable.  The “funny” thing is that we live in a predominantly Latino neighborhood.  He has the same color skin as most of the kids in the neighborhood, except he doesn’t speak Spanish and has a headful of long, curly hair.

I am so glad he maintained his composure.  He knows the N word is one of, if not THE, worst name you could ever call anyone.  He knows about Martin Luther King, Jr.  As he gets older, he will understand the depths of the offensiveness of that term.  Fortunately, he spent most of elementary school in an affluent neighborhood of a college town, where terms like the n word and “fag” were not part of the local vocabulary.  He knows that some kids use these words…and some kids don’t.  He realizes there is something is wrong with kids who use words like that and that there is nothing wrong with him.

And for every boy that calls him the n word or otherwise makes fun of him, there are at least 10 girls who think he’s gorgeous.