What people should do is explain to their friends, to their neighbors how they feel when they confront the word n - - and why they feel the way they feel.

What people should do is explain to their friends, to their neighbors how they feel when they confront the word n - - and why they feel the way they feel.

Any successful black person will have to face suspicion within his or her own community about his or her loyalty to other blacks.

The infamy of n - - is - it's a word that has been used to terrorize people, to put people down. But it has also been used in other ways. It's also been used as a way of putting a mirror up to racism.

In elite, primarily white institutions, there are many blacks who have white wives. So much so that sometimes there is almost the assumption that I would be married to a white woman.

If you want to put somebody down, analogize them to the n - - .

I was born in Columbia in 1954, the year the Supreme Court invalidated racial segregation in public schools. I visited frequently but did not live there.