How Should a White Dad Talk to his Mixed-race Kids about the N-word?

At a high-school athletic event near our home, a mixed-race basketball player heard opposing fans use the N-word aimed at her.

My kids are half Black. I am 100% WASP. We talk openly about almost everything, from sex to faith; relationships to mental health.

But we don’t talk about the N-word. It feels almost completely out of bounds.

So out of bounds that, not only do we never talk about it, but I rarely think about it.

The incident at the basketball game changed that for me. It made the local news and triggered a school district investigation. I wondered why. Each week, there are hundreds of athletic and other extra-curricular events in our community. Maybe thousands. Lots of ignorant, impulsive, stupid, and even hateful things get tossed around nightly. Why was this newsworthy?

A few days later I read a LinkedIn post by a Black man describing his experience calling out some kids who used the N-word at a soccer game. He is the CEO of an education services company and has been in the K-12 education space for some time. In an effort to better understand his perspective and ask for some advice, I reached out to him.

In an effort to be a better dad, I’ve reflected on the experience and have identified four principles that have helped me.

Principle 1: Engage with Discomfort

Before I met the man over video conference, I thought it was time to broach the topic with my own kids. They thought it was odd that I brought it up and were oblivious of the local news item. Still, they were willing to engage as much as teens and pre-teens are on any conversation with their parents.

I wanted to know if they ever use the N-word, and how often they hear it. My immediate goal was to calibrate my own discomfort with the word and better understand the source of that discomfort. It just got me thinking. And it got us talking.

Talking about the N-word, for me, was extremely uncomfortable. When we made it the subject of a conversation, it became something that threatened to divide me from my children. It’s like an oily rag, anyone who touches it gets stained. The older ones have a sense of the ugliness it carries, and in our case, it was obvious that it means something different to them than it does to me.

My conversation with the Black CEO from LinkedIn helped me develop a framework for thinking and talking about it more.

Principle 2: Look for Understanding

His story was encouraging. The experience he shared about the soccer game ended on a positive not. At first, the kids who used the N-word denied having done so. Later, they confessed and apologized.

He didn’t mention the race of the kids who used the word. I didn’t ask.

As a white person in America, do I have any right to judge the severity of the offense based on the color of the trangressor’s skin? Would it have been better or worse one way or the other? I didn’t even want to find out if it changed my thinking, so I didn’t explore.

But I did wonder, what would I have done in his situation? Would I have been less offended because I am white? Or only slightly less offended because my kids are half Black?

Would I have summoned the authority to confront anyone who used that word in public, regardless of their race?

As a white person in America, do I have the moral authority to referee anyone’s speech on race?

I told my new friend that I would be hesitant to call out a young Black person for using that word. He agreed that it probably wouldn’t go over well. But, he offered, taking that young Black person aside in private and explaining that it is inappropriate.

His worry is that too many people will be too casual with the N-word, as if it were just another swear word.

This one is different, he explained. It drips with an intent to dehumanize.

That’s when I thought much harder about why I don’t like the word. Is it because the word makes me uncomfortable? Or that I don’t want to believe others share my sensitivities? Or is it because I really want to advance racial harmony?

It is because the word intends to dehumanize, and deep down I resist the intent.

Having a single conversation, no matter how important, doesn’t grant me any more moral authority than I had before. But perhaps it gives me a modicum of moral understanding.

And I am a little more willing to have these conversations with those who do have the moral authority...

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