Three Dog Night sang the song that as a child was an anthem for understanding.

I started school in Petersburg, Tennessee in 1966.  That summer my parents fought to get me in the Head Start program.  Although we may have had more than many in the rural communities surrounding the great metropolis of Petersburg, we didn't have much.  Seems for the first time in my school history though that we had too much for me to go to Head Start.  Somehow my parents got me in anyway.  I imagine my mom did it in true fighting style.

That fall I entered Petersburg Elementary School in the first year it was integrated.  The "####" school was closed.  Equal opportunity education had arrived in rural Lincoln County.

Today I am continuing a series of blogs on N.  We all need to continue the pursuit of understanding this troublesome word.

My main source is N by Randall Kennedy.

 Over the years N has become America's best known slur.  It has been described as the nuclear racial slur.  It may be the superlative of all racial slurs.  Only the jewish may have been more mistreated and only another N word may be as offensive in American culture, ####.

Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor did a Saturday Night Live skit in the 70's that vividly expreseed the seriousness of using N.  Honky just doesn't affect me that much.

Legally, no other word has resulted in court cases being filed than N.  It first appeared in reports of the U. S. Supreme Court in 1871. 

Conversely, blacks have used N for a various number of meanings.  When used in the black community it may have undertones of warmth and goodwill.  This is expressed in the book N "In the Window" by Helen Jackson Lee.

In the 50's and 60's the word was virtually off limits in black comedy.  But in the 70's it came into full use.  Perhaps the single best performance using the word, and one of my personal favorites is Richard Pryor's That N's Crazy.

My dad brought these performances by Pryor home from work.  The songleader at church, dad must have snuck them past mom like illegal contraband and shared them with me and my brother.  I had a pretty cool dad compared to many other 14 year olds.

Chris Rock is perhaps the comedian that uses the term most jaringly.  I love black people, but I hate N's he begins one of his most famous routines.

The word has also permeated rap music.  Ice T said in one track, "I'm a N not a #### man or a black or a Negro or an Afro - American."

Some seek to drive the word out of comedy and rap. 

Many blacks throw the term back at those that use it to opress them much like I may choose to do with the word ####.  I grew up in rural white tennessee where i am sure some called me that behind my back.  Although, no one ever said it that knew I was a #### that I know of.  So what if they did.

I am a ####.  You deal with it.  If I choose to act like one, you deal with it.  If I want to get over it, I will.  But if I want to throw it in your face, I'll do that too.

If it causes me to sel####estruct, so be it, that's my choice.

The word N not only divides black and white.  It divides the black community between those that choose to use it and those that choose not to.

Eminem blends between black and white culture.  But wisely, he does not use the word N in his tracks.

However, it does not seem appropriate to attempt to eradicate use of the word by whites in literature without considering context.  Uncle Tom's Cabin, Huckleberry Finn and Ragtime would suffer if the word was not there.

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote A word is not crystal transparent or unchanged.  Instead it is the skin of a living thought that may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used."