The Lie Behind the Slur

The first racial slur I ever heard wasn't aimed at me. I was six years old.

We lived in a neighbourhood where Orthodox Jewish families had detached homes next to our flats. One Saturday morning, I was watching Bugs Bunny on television when I looked out the window and saw three children. A boy, maybe eight or nine. A girl about my age. And a little girl, maybe two years old, just trying to keep up with her brother and sister.

They had broken into a Jewish family's home and were carrying out silverware and other household items. And as they walked out, the boy shouted back: "Nothing more for the Jew bugs."

I was stunned. Not just by the burglary — children that young, doing that — but by the ugliness of the word. It was the first time I had ever heard anyone use a racial slur. That memory has never left me. Three children, one barely more than a toddler, already armed with language designed to say: You are not human. You are vermin. You are beneath us.

That was my introduction to the purpose of racial slurs.

A Tool, Not Just an Insult

Most people think of slurs as simple insults. Hurtful words. Name-calling. But if you look closer, you see something more deliberate. A racial slur is not just trying to wound you in the moment. It is trying to keep you in your place. It is a tool of social control, a psychological weapon designed to reinforce a hierarchy.

When someone calls a Black person the n-word, they are not just being rude. They are reaching for a whip that was forged centuries ago. They are trying to remind you that, in their mind, your role is to be at the bottom. They are trying to make you feel less than — because if they can make you feel it, they don't have to work as hard to keep you there.

I saw this early. By the time people started calling me names, I knew what they were doing. They were trying to put me down, to reinforce a social order where I was supposed to accept being at the bottom. And honestly? It didn't work. I thought: I know what you're doing. You're attacking me, and you want me to believe I deserve it. But I don't.

So I ignored it. For a while.

When Ignoring Stops Working

Eventually, the slurs became persistent. Ignoring them wasn't enough — they kept coming. So I stopped ignoring them and started reacting with my fists. And guess what happened? I got labelled the bad girl. Not the bullies. Me.

That's the trap. Ignore the slur, and they keep at it. Fight back, and you become the problem. Either way, the system wins — unless you see through it entirely.

I'm not saying it's easy. Of course, it's unpleasant to be called names, to be made to feel small. But as Black people, especially, we need to rise above this and realise what is actually happening. Someone throws a banana skin at you and calls you a monkey? Look at how ridiculous that is. I love animals. Monkeys are adorable. Yet history is full of supposedly civilised societies committing acts of slavery, colonial exploitation, torture and genocide. And they want to tell me I'm less than human?

No. Animals don't do what humans have done. Animals kill to eat. Animals don't create entire economies based on the dehumanisation of other beings. If anyone is closer to the animal, it isn't us.

Fear Is Often What's Behind It

I haven't been called a racial slur in many, many years. But I know they're still alive and kicking in a lot of people's minds. And what I want my people to understand is this: I believe fear is frequently part of the picture behind a slur.

Not always. Sometimes it's pure ignorance. Sometimes it's hatred passed down like a family heirloom. Sometimes it's tribal loyalty — the need to perform superiority for a peer group. Sometimes it's just a person repeating what they heard without ever thinking.

But very often, there is fear. Fear that you might not accept the place they've assigned you. Fear that you might rise above it. Fear that the social order — the one that puts them above you — is actually fragile. Because if it were real, if you truly were less than them, why would they have to keep telling you? Why would they have to reinforce it over and over and over again?

Truth doesn't need constant repetition. Lies do.

Whether the person calling you a slur is afraid, or just ignorant, or blindly hateful — the mechanism is the same. They are trying to use a word to make you feel small. And understanding that doesn't require you to know their heart. It only requires you to know your own worth.

On Reclaiming the Word

I need to say something that might be unpopular, especially with some Black Americans. The adoption of the n-word within our own communities — the attempt to "reclaim" it — I find completely wrong, repellent, and deeply misguided.

You cannot reclaim a whip. You cannot disinfect a weapon that was used to justify rape, lynching, and the sale of human beings. Using the word among yourselves does not drain it of power. It normalises it. It confuses young people about what that word really is: a tool designed to keep us down. And it lets the people who really want to hurt us off the hook. "If they say it to each other, why can't I?"

No. That word has a history. That history is blood. Leave it in the grave where it belongs.

How to Disarm the Weapon

So what do we do?

First, understand what the slur is for. It's a psychological and social tool. Its purpose is to make you feel less than. Once you see that, you are no longer its victim. You are its observer.

Second, know who you are. Internally, deeply, unshakably. When you know your own worth, someone else's ignorant word bounces off. It might annoy you. It might offend you. But it does not land.

Third, respond — if you respond at all — with clarity, not reactivity. You don't have to fight with your fists like I did. But you also don't have to shrink. You can look at that person and see their fear. You can say, calmly: That says everything about you and nothing about me. And walk away.

Don't let them achieve their result. I once knew a young man who quit his training to join the fire service because his manager called him a racial slur. That was a long time ago. But think about what happened: the slur wasn't just meant to hurt his feelings. It was meant to get a reaction — and more than that, to achieve a result. The result was him leaving. And it worked.

If that happened today, I would urge that person not to be so easily manipulated. Understand the intention behind the slur. Then take it to HR. Take it to a governing body. Don't let them win by driving you out. Stand your ground and use the systems that exist to protect you. That is how you refuse to play their game.

Sometimes, you say nothing at all. And that silence — that refusal to play the game — is the most powerful response of all. But sometimes, you need to speak up through the proper channels. Either way, don't let their slur achieve what they want it to achieve.

When I was in school, the other children couldn't stand that I wouldn't play by the rules. I ignored the slurs, or I dealt with the person directly, and they kept quiet. And that made people uncomfortable. A Black person who won't be triggered? A Black person who sees the slur for what it is? That threatens the whole performance.

Good. Let it threaten them.

Where True Worth Comes From

You might be asking: how do I know who I am? How do I build that unshakable sense of worth?

Here is my answer. My worth does not come from racists. It does not come from governments, schools, public opinion, or social hierarchies. It does not rise and fall with what anyone shouts at me. My worth comes from God. Human beings are made in His image. That was true before the first slur was spoken. It was true in the slave ships, on the auction blocks, and in the schoolyards where children learn to hate. And it remains true today.

No slur can erase the image of God. No amount of name-calling can make you less than what He made you to be. When you know that — really know it — the lie behind the slur loses its power.

Final Word

I thank God that I was given the gift of not absorbing all that negativity. I don't know why, but I saw the mechanism early, and I never forgot it. That early shock of hearing "Jew bugs" as a six-year-old, watching children who had already been taught such poison — something about that stayed with me.

If you take nothing else from this, take this: When someone calls you a name meant to put you down, they are often afraid. Or ignorant. Or repeating what they were taught. But the slur itself is a lie, and lies don't become truth through repetition.

You are not less than. You never were. And no slur, no matter how many times it is shouted, can make it real.

Stand up proud inside of who you are. See them clearly if you can. And refuse to let their fear — or their ignorance, or their hatred — become your wound.