From Niger To The N Word

Copyright © 2024 by Tony DeVaun McNeil

Paperback: 978-1-958381-22-9

eBook: 978-1-958381-18-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024903625

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of nonfiction.

This book is dedicated to El Hajj Malik El Shabaaz, also known as Malcolm X. This work is not for the memory of the fiery misguided minister of the Nation of Islam, but for the awakened Human Rights Leader who wanted goodwill for all of humanity, without regard to the color of skin.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Appendix

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to offer some solutions to the problem of race relations in America. For the Black reader, the existence of race problems is no revelation, for they have experienced them first-hand. Many White readers will meet the problem with feigned disbelief and some with defensive anger. Feigned disbelief, because many Whites say to us, It’s not like that anymore.

It is not my intention to use injustices as a crutch, to justify doing less than my/our best. Neither is it my goal to demand anything that we do not deserve. No matter what others think of me, I will strive to achieve a higher standard in all that I do. What qualifies me to write this book? I am qualified because I am a Black man, living in America, with opened eyes. I have received my degree in race relations from the school of hard knocks. That school demanded that I take certain classes, but it also offered electives. The electives included love, compassion, and fellowship, which I have been blessed to share with many White people over the years.

Black people today and the nonwhites of the past are all joined by a history more powerful than mere words could express. This is true, which means whether you understand it or not, does not diminish its reality. The legacy of Black people in America cannot be discarded, and the blood of the Black men and women cries out from the ground of America! PS: Make notes and feel free to contact me with your suggestions for making the world and us better.

Chapter One

Definitions

In July of 1997, I was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, with the US Army, where I wrote for an independent newspaper called The African-American Voice. In my column called My Two Cents I continually called on Black people to rise up mentally, and strive to live out their/our potential as men and women. I found myself defending one of my columns when my White Company Commander felt I wrote negatively and specifically about him. In that issue, I addressed some points of the late Human Rights leader, Malcolm X. I pointed out how (racist) White people take our words out of context and make it look like were something we really are not. In response to my column, my White commander took my words out of context and verbally reprimanded me for what I had written. In the course of our discussion, he accused me of hiding behind words and twisting them to suit my own purposes.

Sir, I use words in their correct meanings. It is you, who use words incorrectly, I pointed out to him.

He did not want to hear that any more than the average person on the street wants to hear it. That he would not hear it did not negate its existence. English, or more correctly, American may be an easy language to learn, compared to other exotic languages such as Chinese, Hungarian, and Native American, or so it seems. One of the problems with the American language though, is the multiplicity of meanings for words. The secondary meanings that were originally incorrect become so much a part of American speech that it can be difficult to resist using them improperly. For this reason, vocabulary becomes a hindrance to meaningful dialogue. African-Americans for example have become so adept at speaking in a way that keeps passersby from understanding that White people have begun to believe we speak a different language, Ebonics. The words spoken mean one thing, but in context, familiar words take on completely different meanings. Still different from so-called Ebonics or slang, are simple inflections in tone, which give clearer meaning to the listeners. For the sake of clarity, I have defined some of the terms I will be using throughout this book:

BLACK (people)

In this book, Black refers to all persons in the world that are not direct descendants of European-Caucasian.

I always get a kick out of Caucasian people who will admit that Jesus the Christ was not European-Caucasian (White), but will not say, He was Black!

"No, he was not White, but I would not say he was Black, they say. Some correctly compare Him to the Jewish people found in the Middle East today, but still insist that he was not Black. Perhaps they have a different meaning when the say Black that we have not been aware of. Their unwillingness to accept a Black savior seems to betray their subconscious prejudices.

CAUCASIAN (people)

This term sometimes applied to a broad and increasingly vague subdivision of the human species with a predominance of light skin color and higher percentages of light-colored eyes and hair than are found in other segments of the population. The designation Caucasian was first used in the 19th and early 20th centuries by scholars who believed that this subdivision of humankind originated in Caucasia, or around the Caucus mountains, a region of southeastern Europe. Caucasians are now more commonly known as the White race.

Europe is usually considered the center White population and America, even though the spread of Caucasians into North and South America began only a few centuries ago. Hundreds of millions of people in India and the Middle East, however, are most frequently classified as Caucasoid peoples, in areas where distinctions are not clear between White and nonwhite populations.

In North America, confusion over the designation White or Caucasian is considerable. Many people, including Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans, are now being identified as Hispanic rather than White in social counts of American populations, such as the United States Census. Increasingly, the term White is becoming a residual category, denoting that part of the population not covered by the following classifications: Blacks, Hispanics, East Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and other racial subdivisions.

COLORED

According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, all of humankind, that is not Caucasian, or White. In South Africa, a colored person is one of racially mixed parentage, usually spelled c-o-l-o-u-r-e-d. It is also defined as altered, distorted, or exaggerated. If colored means altered or distorted, then off-colored jokes must then be unaltered, undistorted, unexaggerated, and the norm, or color is acceptable and normal.

CRIMINALIZATION

Malcolm X described it as the systematic portrayal of a person or class of people as criminals. Unfortunately, many African-Americans try to live up to this stereotype, often due to the influence of Rap artists. Today we see young Black men attempting to prove their Blackness by walking like their leg is broken, talking like their tongue is broken, and acting like their mind is broken.

Abolitionist, Frederick Douglass said, Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any, one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

While looking down the halls of history, it becomes clear that people have been put into situations where they wrongly come to believe they have no choice but to resort to crime as a source of income. Justifying evil, this is wrong, spiritually damning, and possibly the cause for loss of freedom or life. There are many avenues to financial help other than crime. I do not blame crime on anyone but the criminal who, of his own free will, chooses to commit a crime. I do blame the propulsion of drugs into nonwhite communities on someone other than the nonwhite fools who poison their own people in the name of money. If there were no market for illegal drugs, no one sends or brings them into our communities. No Black person at any degree of poverty is forced to sell drugs, even when the instigator of such trafficking manipulates or take advantage of the environment that is so conducive to pushing drugs.

I blame the media directly and the government indirectly, for constantly portraying Blacks as criminals, disingenuously proportionate to White criminals. Presently, Black people are charged under the Three Strikes Law seven times more than Whites are. Is this just a coincidence?

NIGGA

Different from the word nigger, NIGGA is used both as slang for friend, fellow African-American, or enemy. For example, one African-American may say to another, What’s up my nigga? While on the other hand speak in a degrading manner, Man, I’m gonna bust a cap in that nigga!

The term has become so heavily used in both positive and negative connotations that it is no longer a sensitive point to many Blacks. Many White people fail to realize that this term is not nigger, and because of the context, correct inflection in voice, and relationship to the person with whom he uses the term, it is clearly understood to be positive or negative. If a White person uses the term, it is not as clear what his meaning is unless he is speaking to a Black person he is very close. I do agree with those who espouse that the term should not be used under any circumstances.

NIGGARD

This