Like yelling fire in a crowded theater is not just words. It's an attack.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a writer and a prominent expert on race in the United States. “If you could choose one word to represent the centuries of bondage, the decades of terrorism, the long days of mass rape, the totality of white violence that birthed the black race in America, it would be” the N-word, Coates wrote in the New York Times.
Neal Lester, a Foundation Professor of English and founding director of Project Humanities at ASU, has taught classes on "Straight Talk about the N-Word."
“Nothing is 'just a word'. There’s no such thing as ‘just a word.’ Every word has a function,” he said. “Words become a reflection of people’s thinking – or unthinking … Words express our realities.”
“The people who say ‘It’s just a word’ really know nothing about its history … they have no idea what this word means,” Lester said.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/ahwatukee/2016/01/28/top-questions-answers-comments-desert-vista-n-word/79421996/
When I was a kid growing up in the south, I used to think that it was "just a word" and couldn't understand why it was such a big deal to black people. But I am white, I've never been called the n-word. I have since left the south, grown up and learned how deeply the n-word wounds and dehumanizes black people on so many levels. It not only wounds the black person called that by a white person, but it wounds all black people. White people using the n-word dehumanize and stigmatize all black people in our society.
Of course the substitute was wrong to assault the kid. Violence is never the correct answer. He was punished and that punishment is just beginning. He lost his job, will never be able to teach again, and will likely be criminally prosecuted. But it is very unlikely the kid will face any consequences, even though it's pretty obvious the kid was trying to provoke his black substitute teacher in an ethnic studies class by hurling the n-word. You can bet the kid first heard this word at home, so there is zero chance he will get "some discipline at home." On the contrary, his parents will probably sue the school and the substitute.
If that high school in Richmond wanted to stop kids from using the n-word in school, it would suspend or expel kids who did. But it obviously doesn't have the guts to do that. The black students at that school held a protest the next day, decrying how the n-word is allowed to be thrown around in that school. I hope the school listens and does something, but I doubt it will, sadly.
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