In this clip, listen as a Black grandmother and her grandson share their different experiences with the n-word and how those experiences inform their perspectives on how it is used in the present. The grandmother shares several experiences in which the n-word was flung at her and her family in a way that was meant to demean and degrade them. Those experiences make her completely against the use of the word because it has been used so despicably and she cannot bring herself to separate that past. Her grandson, on the other hand, has experienced the word more through pop culture and musicians such as Kanye using it. He describes it as being reclaimed and that he never experienced the degrading aspect of the word. When he experiences the n-word it isn’t meant to be demeaning or degrading and observes that it has taken on a different meaning in this generation.
It just feels that if I use it, I normalize it and I do not know how to normalize it. And I don’t want to use it in a way that that’s degrading.
