my family and most everyone else I knew referred to the darker folks as “colored people”...
and my parents taught me to be respectful and never speak disparagingly of them or anyone else...
sometimes I’d have dealings with poor white folks, sharecroppers mostly, who’d refer to the darker folks as “*******”, but it was completely matter-or-fact and without malice or disrespect... that was simply the way those folks referred to colored people...
but I’d sure get a whippin’ if I went back home repeated the word “******”... it happened only once, but my parents made it clear that I wasn’t to use that word ever...
on the other hand, I’d sometimes have dealings with the upper echelons of the white community, many of whom would refer to colored people as “nigras”... and they’d say it in such an ugly way as though they were spitting something distasteful outta their mouths... and they’d use the same tone when referring to the poor white folks as “white trash”...
I came to greatly dislike most of those well-off white folks in their fancy houses... ‘specially during the uprests of the mid-60’s, when they’d ask me stuff like “You got any of them nigras in your school, Billy...?”
and my parents taught me to be respectful and never speak disparagingly of them or anyone else...
sometimes I’d have dealings with poor white folks, sharecroppers mostly, who’d refer to the darker folks as “*******”, but it was completely matter-or-fact and without malice or disrespect... that was simply the way those folks referred to colored people...
but I’d sure get a whippin’ if I went back home repeated the word “******”... it happened only once, but my parents made it clear that I wasn’t to use that word ever...
on the other hand, I’d sometimes have dealings with the upper echelons of the white community, many of whom would refer to colored people as “nigras”... and they’d say it in such an ugly way as though they were spitting something distasteful outta their mouths... and they’d use the same tone when referring to the poor white folks as “white trash”...
I came to greatly dislike most of those well-off white folks in their fancy houses... ‘specially during the uprests of the mid-60’s, when they’d ask me stuff like “You got any of them nigras in your school, Billy...?”
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