Growing the Voices of Our Future
The Westside Gazette Newspaper is honored to feature these editorial contributions made by local students.
By Layla Davidson
I take a class called Criminal Justice Operations at Fort Lauderdale High School. In this class we discuss topics regarding the issue of criminal justice, but we also discuss important topics in society.
In one class we were talking about the N-word and my teacher said some things that were very controversial. When talking about the N-word, he stated, “N-word is a white person’s word. So, why do we get mad when they use it?”
Additionally, when a student asked why white people call us Black people monkeys, he stated, “We are all monkeys to be honest. We are just a different breed. We’re orangutans and gorillas.”
Finally, when one student stated that she was unprepared, he said, “You N-word, you all are always unprepared.”
When people use the N-word it doesn’t offend me as much as it once did. However, when he stated that it was a white person’s word, simply because they called us that word, it offended me because African Americans took that word that had a negative connotation and used it to cope with the damage white people had done.
I decided to speak on how I felt through the chat but he never responded. Although it offended me, I feel that is was a learning experience because it shows that not everyone apart of your community is for our community.
