The Germination of Racism

It was a typical rainy Seattle morning. I was walking to school with this cool gal I knew. We were sort-of friends, but we'd talk here and there and hang out sometimes. Her name was Chris, she was a young black girl (my age) and VERY large. I had taken up smoking off and on but always hid it. I decided not to hide it anymore. We were walking to school, and she said, "Let me hit that" I handed her my smoke and let her have a few puffs.

Because of being brought up around certain mouths, the term, “nigger-lipped” came so easy for me to say. I loved black people, and never saw the color of someone's skin. Some of the best friends I ever had were friends of color.

But on this particular day, after never thinking twice, when the butt was wet, I accidentally said it. I said, no, I shouted it! “You nigger-lipped it!” I never thought about what that phrase meant when I was a kid. In my head it always made sense to me as a word that meant someone left the cigarette butt wet. It was just a word in my vocabulary that I never examined before this day.I meant nothing at all racial by it, but after I said it I felt so horrible and realized what that word was meaning.

Now, Chris was about 250 lbs and 6 feet tall. She had huge eyes, and was not a very soft-spoken girl. Quite the contrary, I think she turned red. She had a big loud deep voice. She was two-times me. She looked at me and in her deep voice shouted, “I what?!!!” I swore I saw her grow an extra foot, and flames come out her ears, and her eyebrows, they turned to horns.

“Oh my Gosh what did I do!?” I thought to myself. I turned to her, all the sudden realizing what I said, I felt so bad, and in a tiny quiet voice I stutteringly squeaked out the words, “I …said… you…… fish-lipped it?”, in question format of course. I waited for her response, would her face-sized fist meet my frontispiece? I literally visualized that happening. My little heart was pounding sooo hard and fast!

I wanted to write something about this because I've noticed other phrases that I learned at a very young age, and that a lot of us American's have used in the past that are just as bad. To me what I said was a figure of speech that I had always heard, I would never have said it if I ever thought of it being racial. I never thought a second about the n-word that was in it. She was a good friend though, and she knew it was a slip, and pretended to believe my scared little garbled response to her. We just went on like it never happened. But deep inside, I was intensely sighing and shaking the whole way to school with a feeling of intense guilt!

She was truly a cool friend! She wasn’t naive in the world or in how linguistically people can accidentally offend someone without any ill intention at all. She looked at me after that and just said, “let me hit that again.” Oh I loved knowing her! I wonder what she’s up to now in life. I hope things turned out good for her. She was big and scary, but what a sweetheart to understand what happened.

Thinking now on this slip more than 20 years ago, reminds me of the other phrases I mentioned above. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s. For instance, Cowboy’s and Indians (It essentially could have been renamed Whites and Red Skins). Or how about when we would all call someone an, "Indian Giver" I used that term my whole childhood without ever having it linked in my head as something racist. In my adulthood I believed this term was racist against Indians because they would give horses and steal them back. I was always told that is what its called when you give something and then take it back.

But this is an IMPORTANT topic people. We need to watch what we are passing on to the next generation. Some of what seemed the simplest things when we were little stemmed from very racial times and seeds planted in our little hearts by racial people who imprinted them into our brains through linguistic measures. It followed us. It can follow your children too, so watch your mouth around them. I don't let my children say any of these phrases and it makes me wonder how many other phrases we use in the English language that have racist roots. Let’s give the next generation a chance to get to know the natural American in there head and not the colors of their skins.