Forgive Me for No Posts in a Long While

December 7th was my last posting and that just won't do.


I will post something tomorrow.

In the meantime . . . Yosemite.

g

memoir

I was quite young, playing outside in my small home town in Mississippi. I don't recall what was at stake, or the friends I was with, but I suppose a choice had to be made so I sang, "Eeenie, meenie, miinie, mo, catch a . . . . "

But in Mississippi, little kids using this rhyme did not catch a "tiger." We caught a "n______." And so that's what I commanded. And just about the time I said it, my mother came running out of the kitchen.

"Gregory! Get in here. Right now!"

Now, I'd never seen my mother that angry and I had no idea what she was angry about.

"What’d I do?" I asked. And then her legs brought her 4'11'' frame to me quite quickly, whereupon she grabbed my arm and brought me inside with all the vigor she could muster.

Once in the kitchen, she turned and faced me, still holding my arm and with an authority I’d never heard in her voice she commanded, "Don't you ever let me hear you use that word again! We do NOT use that word in this family and I don't care who else uses it or how much. WE . . . DO . . . NOT! Do you understand me?"

Well, you know, I didn't really understand, but I sensed that admitting to that would just get me into more trouble. At the same time, I also figured out that the only word that she could be talking about was the one that I really didn't know the full meaning of. At that young age, I wasn't really clear as to what "n_________" meant. I surely didn't picture a human being when I said ". . . catch a n________ by the toe” though I knew that there were human beings to whom that word referred, but that reference was always confusing to me, perhaps because my parents called those people “negroes.”

Anyway, I wanted to placate my mother, so when she announced that "WE . . . DO . . . NOT" say a particular word, I made as if I understood.

But she must've known better. I must've had some quizzical look on my face because she visibly relaxed a bit, stood there looking at me like she'd just figured out something, and asked, "You don't really know what I'm talking about do you?"

Never having seen my mother so angry, not being aware of any transgression on my part, and absolutely relieved that she had calmed down with a more solicitous approach, I broke into tears. "Nooooooooooo!!!!" I cried. "Wha’did I do????!!!!!!?????"

Then she told me what, perhaps, she should have told me long before, but hadn’t. She told me, as best she could in order to make it clear to a little boy, about the problems between white and black people, about the bad treatment, and the bad words. That people who use the bad words might be mistaken for bad people who do bad things. She told me about "n_______" in particular and explained what she could. I realized I’d never heard her use that word before; nor had I heard my father use it. But I’d heard a lot of other mothers and fathers use it and so I was suddenly proud of my parents.

"So I know you didn't mean anything by it because you didn't know any better," she acknowledged.

"Uh-huh, I didn't know. I didn't mean nothin' by it!"

"Well, now you know."

And she was about to let me go back outside to play, but then she grabbed me again with as much force, but without malice as if, this time, she was pulling me away from the brink of some bad fall. Her eyes were just as big as before, but softer, as she added: “Don’t you dare tell anyone other than your father what I just told you. Not friends. Not their parents. You’re gonna hear that word and you will hear it . . . .”

“I have heard it . . . a lot,” I assured her.

“Yes, I know you have, but you will never correct them or tell them what I said. Do you understand?”

“But . . . .”

“It will get you into more trouble than you can possibly imagine . . . and me, too,” she said, firmly looking at me, riveting her face to mine, her eyes to mine, so that I understood, wordlessly, that the safety of my mother sat in my hands and so I shook my head gravely, too preemptively afraid for my mother to say a word.

Went back outside to my friends and this I remember well: I felt superior to them, more mature, and protective of my mother. They laughed as they asked what had come over my mother and whether I’d gotten the “whippin’” it looked like I was going to suffer. Even now I burn a little cold imagining, as I did then, that these so-called friends of mine might harm my mother.

I don’t recall how I responded to their teasing -- just the sort of rising-above-it-all sensation that comes with revelation amidst those to whom the profound thing has not yet been, could not be, revealed.


I haven't said or written "n__________" since. And the issue never found a voice again in the family. My mother’s sister used it once when I was about 14, causing my mother to visibly wince, embarrassing my aunt, but we didn’t discuss it. Should’ve, but felt like we didn’t have to. My mother had scandalized the word and any scenario involving it.

Indeed, it took me a long, long time, long after the family left Mississippi, and I was in my late teens or early 20s, until I confronted the word upon hearing it, forgetting, I’m sure, that I was breaking my promise to my mother, a promise that needed to be broken, a promise I’m sure she’d have me break.