I’m Called My First Racial Slur Since I Was a Kid

Growing up in Chicago in the 1960s was interesting, to say the least. I wouldn’t say that I grew up on the most racially diverse block, but there was plenty of “diversity” in the city. Namely, Chicago was one big, failed social experiment with massive public housing projects built around the city. St. James Street, where I lived, was the pimple getting squeezed between the Latin Kings and the De Mau Mau gang.

I used to have to walk through a big park on my way to school. It was always an adventure. When I was in 3rd grade I got to see police dogs attack a group of kids who were huffing model glue from their lunch bags. (They sold real model glue full of toluene to kids back in the day.) I got hit up for my lunch money. (Good thing about being poor, I didn’t have lunch money. I usually had a few cents, and back then you didn’t get shot because you didn’t have money. More like kicked in the ass.) I learned to fight. And fight hard.

Back then is when I first heard racial epithets directed at me. I grew up in a cop’s house, so I’d heard all the bad words for the Puerto Ricans and blacks. (I hated it then and I hate it now.) But I didn’t process that there were racial words for little white kids. Well, I learned them all: whitey, white boy, cracker, gringo, and one real favorite, honky.

Then we moved outta there. Outta the frying pan into the fire. My high school had race riots twice a year for four years that closed the school down for a week each time. The first week of my freshman year I saw a kid get run into by a police cruiser, a teacher stabbed in the thigh and shoved out a second story window, and the police chief hit on his helmet with a baseball bat that caused him to go into a convulsion. Ah, the joys of the race riots of the 1970s.

Fast forward to present day.

I got out of that environment. Went to college. Moved away. And hadn’t heard any more racial slurs directed at me in 30+ years. (At least that I could hear.) So imagine my surprise when I got this comment on iFlipFlop last week in response to a post I did titled, I’m Gonna Flush That Koran Right Out of My Hand:

Someday these american infidels will pay and all of America will come under the rule of Islam. The Muslims of America and its laws are here to stay Kafir.
– Nahamid Mohamed

Know what a “kafir” is? I didn’t know. Honestly, the article he commented on was about an American evangelical church sign saying they wanted to flush the Koran and I was saying that was wrong. So I thought “kafir” meant “friend.” Um, I wasn’t quite on the ball. It’s not a nice word that you call your friends.

NB: I know that non-whites are not as lucky as me. Many can’t write that they haven’t heard a racial slur since they were a kid, and that’s a real tragedy in it’s own right. This is just a point about my own experience and who’s saying it.

Posted on August 15, 2007
Filed Under Frank's World | Comments

Comments

  • Bill, maybe I did misinterpret and make a miskafir. Too bad, because I was getting a batch of t-shirts printed with "I'm with Kafir" on them, just in case the takeover happens quickly.
  • Bill Strahan
    Is it possible that you are not the kafir in question. (I have no personal knowledge of your level of kafirness.) Could this have been actually intended in the direction of the sign author?

    Not that it makes is OK but maybe a little less scary than indiscreminate kafiring. Maybe it was a miskafir?
  • Wow, that's a creepy statement!
  • Pax, an infidel I am. Is that a kind of fallen Catholic? Yes, let's piss 'em all off. Hey, wow, now that's a last name. Johnny Infidel.

    Rick, that ain't the half of it. That was some rough stuff. I was the first in my family to graduate high school, go to college, graduate college, go to grad school, etc. Lots of firsts.

    Moni, thanks. I'm not crazy about trolls...especially ones like this.

    Pinky Bear, you have a way with words. Well done...and I will take it as a compliment. ;-)
  • "I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist/I'm not a slave to a world that doesn't give a shit."

    Well, Frank, take it as a compliment. :-)
  • What Rick said. Wow! you've really come a long way!

    I hate trolls. ugh.
  • I had no idea what your youth was like. What you have become is even more amazing given that environment.
  • I always knew you were an infidel!

    Hey buddy, I get hate (email) from born again Christians (due to all my mockery of Jan Crouch and the rest of them fools, from a few years back), and you get it from Islamic zealots!

    Yeah, let's piss 'em all off.

    BTW, I work with someone who's last name is Kafir!!
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