Good read - from the jump:
“By far the most commonly heard word throughout the school, literally hundreds of times a day, like a weapon fired indiscriminately, was nigga. The most amazing story from those painful years was the time I said it myself.
Sometimes you just have had enough. One day a girl sitting towards the back of the classroom shouted at some boy up front, Yo! Nigga! Stop that! I stood up as tall as I could and said in my most supercilious voice, I dont know which particular nigga the young lady is referring to, but whoever it is, would you please stop it. The kids couldnt believe their ears:
Yo, miss! You cant say that!
Why not? You say it all the time.
Uhh
Because youre old.
Thats not why. Come on, tell the truth.
This went on for a bit, until one brave lad piped up: Because youre white. Okay, I said, because Im white. Well what if I said to you, Youre not allowed to say some word because youre black. Would that be okay? They admitted that it wouldnt. No one seemed to report it. To this day, its puzzling that I didnt lose my job over that incident. I put it down to basic human decency.
The children apparently were open to learning in the true sense. One might never know what a lasting impact that teaching moment had on their lives. True example of academic freedom.