I was walking back to work today coming from lunch and as I was crossing the street. I heard someone yelling behind me. I really didn't pay it no mind but as the person got closer I realized that he was yelling out nigger! I didn't turn around I was looking up at huge banner draped on the side of the museum I work at advertising an upcoming exhibition titled In the Hands of African American Collectors: The Personal Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, the exhibition will consist of art work and objects that the couple has collected from the Civil War era through the Civil Rights era and up to contemporary times. The image on the banner is a painting by Samuel L. Dunson, Jr. titled The Cultivators, showing three country looking black men picking books in a field like cotton. So I am staring at this image as this person behind riding behind me on a bicycle continues to scream at me, " is that weave in your hair (I have braided extensions) it doesn't matter your hair is still nappy." Now the strange thing is I really wasn't bothered by it, it just seemed absurd. Finally, I turned without stopping and looked at the person it was a white boy with wild looking black hair he looked very disheveled and like he might be "on" something. I just looked at him with curiosity. He stopped yelling when I looked at him and just kinda looked at me curious too and then kept riding. I guess he expected me be upset or to yell back at him and when I didn't it confused him.

I just shook my head like I can't believe silly shit like this still happens and kept walking. I don't know was I suppose to react differently? Should I have gotten angry and chased him down? I don't know.

It made me think of another time when another such incident happened. I was in college and I can't remember what we were talking about to make the girl say the following but as a joke this white girl I casually knew blurted out "if we were back in slavery days, you would be mine." Basically the record stopped. I was the only black person in the room so reacting to this comment was all on me. I was like a deer stuck in the headlights. My Latina friend and the other white girl present just starred dumbstruck and quickly made excuses to leave. I told the girl that her comment was not funny I knew I was expected to react angrily but I was so crushed by it I felt weak. I just told her to leave. As the days went on I became more and more angry and embarrassed that I had not slapped her and cussed her out. Finally, I told the girl I wanted to have a one-on-one with her. She came to my room and at length I told her why her comment was hurtful etc ( I have never been nor would I ever have been a slave). She gave me some lame excuse saying people up north (she was from Jersey) joked like that. Well, I told her I am a Southern girl and there was nothing funny about slavery. After I talked to her she apologized. The apology didn't have as much affect as the comment though.I still question my reaction to that even now to this day. Anyways I distanced myself from this girl (and all those like her) and never allowed her into my presence again. Last I heard of her she had dropped out of college and was working as a stripper.

A Colombian friend of mine asked very sincerely once, "how does it make you feel when you are called that word." I just couldn't find the words to explain it to her but I did my best to make her understand that it was a very physical reaction. When that word is said vindictively it is almost like a chain is pulled in your mind, body and soul that snatches you back to a period you may have never been a part of but she feel the weight of it on your shoulders everyday and when that chain is pulled it's like it all comes down.

Her question made me wonder why does that word have so much emotional power? I mean being called a bitch pisses me off but it's not quite the same feeling, not even close. I finally decided that I didn't want that word to control me. Why am I required to let some fool control me and get angry because they shoot that word at me. Anyways, a nigger literally is a ignorant person so that word does not apply to me and it has no power over me.

What do you think? If you were ever called a nigger hatefully, how did you react? Is it weakness if I don't react angrily? Or how should a black person react? I don't know these are just thoughts in my head.