The N Word

When Andy went upstairs to see the boys on Saturday night, she asked Zach where Ezra was.

“He’s in trouble, and Sissy is talking to him,” Zach’s answered.

“Why?  What did he do wrong?” inquired Andy.

“He said the N word to Sissy.”

What?!!!

Sissy is Black, and Andy worried that Ezra might have used a heinous racial epithet with a girl he now considers part of our family (the rest of whom are White).  But how could he have known that word?  And why on Earth would he ever say it?

“What did he say?” she asked again.

“The N word.  You know, nuts.”

Yes, Sissy was off chastising Ezra for saying, “My nuts are really killing me,” in front of a three-year-old girl.

Obviously, Zach had heard someone use the phrase “the N word,” and sensed that said word was not to be uttered aloud.

Words are tricky.

A friend of the boys’ asked Ezra several times on Saturday why he was calling the girl with them Sissy.  She didn’t look like his idea of a sister, and Ezra would never give him a satisfying answer.  Instead, he kept insisting, “Because she IS my sister.”

Finally, on the fourth attempt to get a better answer, the boy asked, “But why are you calling her Sissy?  She’s not really your sister, right?”

“Okay,” Ezra answered with great frustration, as though he’d just given in to water boarding and was about to give up state secrets.  “Okay, she’s my sister-in-law.”

Three things strike me about these encounters:

1.  Both boys were doing the best they could to use the language they hear to explain their current circumstances.  I wonder just how often kids misinterpret the many words and phrases swirling about just above their comprehension level.

2.  I love how easily and confidently both boys “adopt” others into our family.  But I wish that we had been more explicit with Ezra that he can call Sissy a sister because in God’s economy it’s not racial similarities that make you family.

3.  And yet…  It’s just another reminder of how little we talk explicitly about race to the boys – which is a mistake.  Did Ezra know why the boy was unconvinced that Sissy was a relative?  Should he have responded to that directly?  When is it time to tell Zach about the harmfulness of the “N word.”  And if you have a Black teenager living with you, shouldn’t you be even more watchful of the role of language and how language effects racial attitudes in your home?

Lots to think about…