{"id":4468,"date":"2015-03-16T20:43:32","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T00:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.riotnumbers.com\/?p=111"},"modified":"2015-03-16T20:43:32","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T00:43:32","slug":"the-n-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2015\/03\/the-n-word\/","title":{"rendered":"The N-word"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"profanity\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am no fool.<\/p>\n

I knew that I would have to confront the n-word during some point in this project.<\/p>\n

I just didn’t know that I would have to deal with it so early. There I was researching riot #1 when it first jumped out. Just like that.<\/p>\n

I thought about putting this topic about it off for later, waiting, letting time help me figure out what to do here, what to say, but then I decided to just grab the bull by the horns. But then I got caught up in some other riots. Each time, I found the n-word. Again, this isn’t surprising at all, but it is a different experience to read it so many times in such a short period of time.<\/p>\n

Because I am very uncomfortable with that particular word, I will not use it in the project. I will choose euphemism,\u00a0making use of ellipses and square brackets. This way, I am able to communicate what I have read while indicating that I have made an edit to the text. There is one exception, though. Book titles. If the word is in the title of a book, I think that I’ll leave it if I feel the need to allude to said book.<\/p>\n

Nobody said that this project was going to be comfortable.<\/p>\n

This isn’t a decision that I flipped a coin and made. Historians typically don’t avoid the word. After all \u00a0if you’re studying history, you spend time with the words that were used. Primary documents include all of the things that time has deemed inappropriate, hateful, evil, wrong or what have you. It is a part of what you’re studying. So, in a sense, I’m breaking with some of the very traditions I’m turning to in order to frame the project.<\/p>\n

I did my homework first, looking for books on the word. I was looking for an understanding of the word that went deeper than the one that I already had.<\/p>\n

I began to read.<\/p>\n

I long have understood that it is a racial slur, that has had a long history in the United States. It has also taken on some other uses, not without controversy.\u00a0I hoped that this reading would help me to\u00a0compose a concise post here about why I was making the decision I am here. What I learned instead is that it would require\u00a0substantial research to get to that point. Considering the already daunting scope of this project that I’m not going to follow those numerous trails.<\/p>\n

Besides, if the research that I’ve done so far says anything about the research that I’ll do during this project, I have the feeling that I’m about to be schooled on about 200 years of that explosive word’s usage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am no fool. I knew that I would have to confront the n-word during some point in this project. I just didn’t know that I would have to deal with it so early. There I was researching riot #1 when it first jumped out. Just like that. I thought about putting this topic about […] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[701],"tags":[774],"class_list":["post-4468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mathematics-of-a-race-riot","tag-mathematics-of-a-race-riot","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p33KTw-1a4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4186,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2014\/12\/words-words-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":4468,"position":0},"title":"Words, Words, Words","author":"sherlonya","date":"December 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A writer, I often like to turn to a dictionary when I\u2019m attempting to learn about something. This project is no different. So, I consulted, first, the Oxford English Dictionary, widely accepted as the authority on the English language. The OED not only defines words, but digs into their history.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mathematics of a Race Riot"","block_context":{"text":"Mathematics of a Race Riot","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/mathematics-of-a-race-riot\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4292,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2015\/01\/digging-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":4468,"position":1},"title":"Digging In","author":"sherlonya","date":"January 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 One of the major challenges of this project is deciding how far to delve into the facts of each riot. The random number generator did me a favor with the first couple of riots. It\u2019s just a bigger challenge to find information about some of these riots than it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mathematics of a Race Riot"","block_context":{"text":"Mathematics of a Race Riot","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/mathematics-of-a-race-riot\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"digging","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.riotnumbers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/digging-300x298.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4190,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2014\/12\/an-interview\/","url_meta":{"origin":4468,"position":2},"title":"An Interview","author":"sherlonya","date":"December 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I asked a friend who is familiar with the variety of my writing and creative projects to ask me 10 questions about this project. I liked to be challenged, and he obliged me. Gotta love having great friends! Terry T: If you allow me to put you in a box\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mathematics of a Race Riot"","block_context":{"text":"Mathematics of a Race Riot","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/mathematics-of-a-race-riot\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"interview","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.riotnumbers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/interview-300x295.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4178,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2014\/12\/method\/","url_meta":{"origin":4468,"position":3},"title":"Method","author":"sherlonya","date":"December 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"How does one go about a project to learn about American black-white race riots? One answer is that you just jump in. You just get started. For me, that first step is to figure out the scope of the project. Number of incidents that this project will cover. How sure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mathematics of a Race Riot"","block_context":{"text":"Mathematics of a Race Riot","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/mathematics-of-a-race-riot\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"115f","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.riotnumbers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/115f.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4470,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2015\/03\/philadelphia-pennsylvania-1834\/","url_meta":{"origin":4468,"position":4},"title":"Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1834)","author":"sherlonya","date":"March 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"On Tuesday, August 12, 1834 a white mob consisting of several hundred people attacked a building in Philadelphia which housed the Flying Horses, a popular carousel that served both blacks and whites in the area. The mob destroyed the building and fought against any black people (and presumably others) who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mathematics of a Race Riot"","block_context":{"text":"Mathematics of a Race Riot","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/mathematics-of-a-race-riot\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"carousel","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.riotnumbers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/carousel-257x300.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4271,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2015\/01\/harlem-new-york-1935\/","url_meta":{"origin":4468,"position":5},"title":"Harlem, New York (1935)","author":"sherlonya","date":"January 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Age of Lino Rivera, the black Puerto Rican young man at the center of this event. On March 19, 1935, Mr. Rivera shoplifted a pen knife from a five and dime store. He was chased and caught\u00a0by store employees. Rivera didn\u2019t take being caught calmly. He severely bit the hands\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mathematics of a Race Riot"","block_context":{"text":"Mathematics of a Race Riot","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/mathematics-of-a-race-riot\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"16","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.riotnumbers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/16.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}