I wonder how many times we are offensive without knowing we’re being offensive. How often do we complain about being mistreated while acting exactly like the person we’re complaining about?

The Moth Radio Hour, an extremely popular show on NPR, aired an episode called Changes of Heart available as of 8/20/2020. According to themoth.org/radio-hour webpage, in a segment called Fighting Words, “Damon Young questions his sense of self based on the power of a racial slur.” That’s how Moth portrayed Mr. Young’s eleven-minute segment.

During the segment, Mr. Young spoke of three ugly incidents—of three ugly attacks during which white people called his mother and grandmother “nigger,” a white girl called his sister “nigger,” and a white boy called him “nigger.”

As a black man, Mr. Young was right to complain, was right to tell the world about instances in his life when racists expressed their hatred based on something as idiotic as is the color of their victim’s skin.

I fully agree with Mr. Young’s publicizing his suffering the blight of racism—and yet I wish that Mr. Young was not a racist.

I have sprung a trap in the above paragraphs that I hope is about to make you uncomfortable. The trap, obviously, is that I, a white man, used the word nigger three times. Did you fall into it? Oops… That’s not the trap. That’s the camouflage. The trap is that I pointed out his mention of “a white girl,” and “a white boy,” while I referred to Mr. Young as “a black man.” Did you fall into it?

If you heard his segment of the broadcast, did you catch his racially offensive language?

If you didn’t hear his broadcast or didn’t notice the slurs but you’re willing to listen to his segment, listen especially to two quotes at the specified minute markers:

At 5:50 “This white girl in the band called [his sister] a nigger…”

At 1:39 “There’s some sort of altercation or disagreement with the cashier, who’s a white boy…”

Why is it okay to call a white woman a girl and a white man a boy? If I call your father, whatever his age, a boy, will you be comfortable? If he is eighteen and you are three, would it be okay? If I call your mother a girl, will you laugh? If she is seventeen and you are two, would it be okay?

So again: How many times are we offensive without knowing we’re being offensive? How often do we complain while being the same as the person we’re complaining about?

In recent years I have twice responded with the word nigger when I was called a white boy by a black man. Introducing the word nigger brought festivities to a halt, and I was afraid for my life, but that was my paranoia controlling me, just as our exchange of slurs was controlling us. In the latter instance, we argued, he disagreed with me and got very angry, then his friend—thank you, thank you, thank you—got him to leave me untouched. Part of his argument was that being called a white boy wasn’t anything like having ancestors who were slaves, and I agreed, my voice shaky. But ancient slavery justifies today’s fear and anger over continuing inequalities, not racial insults, intentional or unconscious. I like to think that the men who heard me use the “n” word never again used the “w b” words or the “w g” words.

Mr. Young ended his segment by telling us how the insults made him angry and strangely satisfied, and then he rose to the highest level of maturity, higher than I would have in his situation. Nearly his last words, he said he had never again “assign[ed] any level of my racial identity, [of] my blackness, to how white people treated me…”

I commend Mr. Young. But I’ll also note what he said at minute marker 7:10. “When white people are called on racism…” those white people mention their one black buddy, which Mr. Young seems to disagree with. No matter their response, Mr. Young now needs to decide what he will do now that I’ve pointing out his racism. I hope he again rises to the highest level of maturity.

Again, I respect him, both for what he said and how he said it. Mr. Young doesn’t owe me anything, especially not an apology. I admire him for standing up and speaking his truth. I admire him for his casual friend-to-a-friend delivery and for adding humor to tell us about Human ugliness. But as with the old cliché, “When we point a finger at the Moon, our other fingers are pointing back at us.”

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I listened to Mr. Young’s stories, stories that need to be told, but I listened hoping that he would end with a parallel story about white boys. He did not. He insulted a vicious white male cashier, then a savage white female in his sister’s chorus unconsciously. Isn’t unconscious racism worse than conscious racism? To debase another Human Being without noticing you’ve debased that person, to debase someone because your society has given you a blanket acceptance of your unconscious use of slurs… Isn’t that worse?

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Racism doesn’t end with Mr. Young any more than it ended with the cashier or the singer.

Why didn’t the host who shared the stage with Mr. Young mention the slurs? Why didn’t the host of the radio show mention the slurs? Why didn’t anybody in the audience? Did anybody else notice—did anybody feel—Mr. Young’s unconscious racism? My opinion: no. They didn’t notice his racism. Because they didn’t want to notice black racism. Not these days. Not while so much good work is being done to accelerate the process of fixing the legal and economic problems that still deny black people of their constitutional rights. Racism, however, is racism.

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I was proud of white people as described from Mr. Young’s perspective because of what he didn’t mention. I have secretly hoped that racism is diminishing in our country, even though the TV news tells me it isn’t. But calling a white man a white boy is exactly as biased as is calling a black man a nigger, so I remain hopeful. I’m proud of all the white people and yellow people and red people and every other color of people who have interacted with Mr. Young’s family and have never debased themselves by using racial slurs. Pat yourselves on the back, everybody other than those three lowlifes.

That his family had to endure racial slurs three times is three times too many. But isn’t the larger lesson here that black children born today have a better chance of never being called niggers? Well, except by other black people.

What tiny percent of one percent of those who have interacted with Mr. Young’s family have not debased themselves with racial slurs? Isn’t that proof that things are getting at least a little better? Aren’t the “hundred-thousand” who don’t express racism worthy of focus?

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Where do I fit in? How many times have I been called a white boy? Separately, how many black men have called me a white boy? And why didn’t I speak up until a few years ago?

Because I was afraid? Yes.

Worse than my fear, how often am I unconsciously racist?

But it goes deeper than that. I can hear the words “white boy” every night on TV. Every night. Not nigger, unless expressed by a black person, but white boy? Yeah, sure, that’s okay. Let black actors and black interviewees offend white people whenever they choose, but oh my God, don’t let white people say nigger.

How many times have you heard the words white boy? A hundred? A thousand? If you’ve watched much TV, then certainly a thousand times.

How times did you speak up?

Never?

Ignorance, sometimes, is unintentional. Is that our camouflage? Can our ignorance of how we disrespect other races justify our racism? If so, then should white people who don’t see harm in doing so again use the word nigger?

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Black people should demand that society puts the word nigger in its grave. White people should demand that society puts the words white boy and white girl in their grave. Yellow people should demand that society puts the word chink in its grave. Red people should demand that society puts the word Cochise in its grave. And on and on… Removing racial slurs from our lives will not fix everything, but continuing to use racial slurs will guarantee continued hostilities.

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I fully support the current push for black justice, for black equality in the courts and on the paycheck. But I’m too old to deny how the near future will go. The white men who control our country don’t want to lose any money or power so they will keep saying pretty words until the next crisis pushes the public cry for racial equity offstage. They will talk, talk, talk, then do nothing.

When high school students bravely and emotionally demanded gun control, demanded safe schools, all government responses were similar to “Oh yeah! We agree! Let’s fix this now! …However…” In the end they did nothing.

When the me-too movement launched, the president and congress said, “yeah, us too!” But how many women have gotten their pay raised to equal what men are paid? Or isn’t pay inequity me-too enough?

What has happened in the recent past is what will happen this time, so yes Mr. Young, rail against the monsters. Be heard. And vote ‘em out.

Tell your story. Tell anyone and everyone about white people calling your mother and grandmother niggers, your sister a nigger, and you a nigger. But think about this. If these three instances are what you’re implying, each a single instance, then why not mention the hundreds of thousands of white people who interacted with your family who did not call them niggers?

Racism isn’t a white problem any more than it is a black problem. Racism is racism.

A baby boomer, I heard my uncles use the word nigger. Each time, one of my parents would tell them to stop it, but mom and dad smiled while saying it. I could tell that my parents were uncomfortable being in the position of parenting their adult brothers, and I respect their standing up to my uncles, but oh, those smiles.

I later asked what nigger meant, and my dad said that nigger referred to people from Nigeria, but that it was a bad word. He removed my initial confusion by adding a new confusion. Until I was seventeen, I understood that a nigger was someone from Nigeria, just like Italians were from Italy. But somehow it was bad.

Then I “grew up” and I went to work and met my first black men and thought I was with them exactly like I was with white men. But that troubling question: not, am I ever offensive, but how often am I offensive without knowing I’m being offensive?

When people mistreat me, do I give them the same space for having a bad day as I would like them to give me?

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How careful should we be? I’m reminded of the old cliché, “It’s like the pot calling the kettle black.” Racism is far more insidious than any of us realize. And we’re all guilty.

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I’m an old man. After years of thought I chose to respond with the word nigger on two separate occasions when a black man called me a white boy. I hoped that my intentional offensiveness would diminish the number of times any white man would be called white boy. I don’t know if it helped or not. I know I was afraid. I believe that the several black men who were there were also afraid. Without question, we were all uncomfortable—but none of us went to the morgue. None of us went to the hospital or even got punched. If I had been a younger man, maybe I would have been punched. I don’t know.

Can blogging about slurs help? I am uncomfortable doing this, but being uncomfortable is better than comfortably accepting slurs, no matter their source.

I’m not a particularly strong person. I know I’m not because what I most fear is that in the few minutes you’ve been reading this I’ve expressed my own unconscious racism. Yeah. My worst fear is that my ego will get bruised.

Like me, Mr. Young seemed uncomfortable while he told his stories. Maybe uncomfortable conversations are the best conversations, or maybe I’m wrong.

But as is Mr. Young, I’m trying.