Editor’s note: This post intentionally uses language that is offensive and characteristic of hate. I choose to use this language to help broaden the conversation on issues of race in our culture.
One day, over ten years ago, I was talking with a man in the town where we lived. It was a rural, Southern town, with a heritage of racism. I wasn’t yet serving a church, however I was certainly on the path to ministry. And, by this point in my life, I had been through several workshops on racism, and had some sense of what constituted racist speech.
I don’t remember the exact words of the conversation, or for that matter how the subject came up, but before I knew it this man (almost out of the blue) was making comments about his feelings on African Americans:
“I hate it when niggers get uppity,” he said. “They need to stay in their place!”
