Before you call someone the N-Word
A recent weekend getaway to Iowa City took an unexpected turn.
By Dana James
"F-----g n-----s!"
During a road trip to Iowa City a few weeks ago, I steered my SUV into a parking space next to a black car filled with two older white men. They had chosen to back their car in. My best friend sat next to me. Our husbands sat in the back — doing what husbands do — backseat driving. OK, fine. They said the car was crooked, so I backed up a bit to pull into the space properly. They were still making comments from the backseat, so I told them to get out and let me park.
Meanwhile, the white men stared. The maneuvering took, at most, 90 seconds. As the men slowly pulled off, one of them said we should have waited to straighten out our car until they had exited. Keep in mind that I had never blocked their vehicle. But OK, entitlement.
The men inched away. Out of reach but well within earshot, the driver yelled back at us: "F-----g n-----s."
Chaos erupted after those hateful words slammed into our ear drums. Expletives filled the air, along with our disgust.
My friends all remember the first time they were called the N-word. My pal Audrey Burgs, now 70, recalls first hearing the N-word at a park. She was 7 years old. The white girl who uttered the racial slur said she was entitled to use the swings first because she was white.
I still remember where I was standing inside Goodrell Middle School in Des Moines when Curt Crawford called me the N-word, and as a high schooler on a band trip to Nashville, Tennessee, a passerby yelled the racial epithet at us from his truck.
Before you say: "Oh, Dana, it's just a word," or "Oh, Dana, you probably listen to rap songs filled with a derivative of the word all the time," know this: No one gets to decide how I feel about the N-word. No one gets to decide what I think about any derivatives thereof. I get to choose how I feel and how I'll respond to decrepit white men hurtling a racial slur my way — and any future ones who may dare.
The year 2025 almost assures someone else will dare.
Beginning with the Trump presidency down to the Iowa Legislature, white men are working feverishly to slash Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, (DEI), scrubbing it from policies, laws and websites. They're targeting Critical Race Theory, a concept not used in K-12 education and one they willfully misinterpret to the public. They're working overtime to ban books and erase Black history. The Waterloo School District made national news when it canceled a book event featuring Black authors. (Thankfully, the Waterloo community, led by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nikole Hannah-Jones, held its own Read-In on March 15.) But, other districts are considering similar capitulation.
It only makes sense that modern-day racists are itching to trot out the N-word in this increasingly anti-Black environment.
Forever First Lady Michelle Obama famously said, "When they go low, we go high," but Ms. Marie, on the Tyler Perry drama, "Sistas," said: "When they go low, we go to the gutter."
I'm with Ms. Marie. Please understand I’m not advocating violence; I'm promoting awareness. Be aware that calling someone the N-word in these stressful, dire days of 2025 might not end well.
💥Editor’s Note:
This column can be found in the March edition of the Black Iowa Newspaper. We’ll be driving the newspaper across the state the weekend of March 22-23.
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I’m a 71 year old white man who is ashamed of the way you were treated. I’m also angry, outraged and offended that this could happen to you or anyone else, regardless of color. Because I feel we’d progressed much further than this type of behavior as a society. I’m not naive enough to believe there aren’t still cowardly bigots in Iowa. It’s just my sense that our elected officials have created an environment where this sort of travesty is being tolerated, and not considered as seriously harmful as it should.
People of color, LGBTQ+ , and others who simply aren’t mainstream are now less safe it seems. The divisive rhetoric and politics of Republican politicians are culpable.
They should have known this would happen and it appears to me they really don’t care anymore.
Those men tried to belittle you and that’s the point. It’s all about power over someone else.