Joseph Matis
August 6, 2007
Felma Arceneaux
August 8, 2007
The Rev. Noah Smith, of the Rock of Ages Baptist Church in Houma, said use of the word causes one to “… blaspheme the man who carried the Cross of Jesus Christ.”
Jarae Parker, president of the Terrebonne Parish NAACP Youth Council, said the word “is degrading to our ancestors.”
And Diana Collins, youth director of the Terrebonne Parish NAACP, said the word is a “vile insult to our past, present and future.”
The three were among those who lead a ceremony Saturday to bury the “N-word,” a racial slur for African-Americans.
The ceremony, part of a nationwide effort among the National Advancement for the Association of Colored People, was held at the Rock of Ages Baptist Church on Aycock Street.
Collins organized the local ceremony after the Terrebonne Youth Council returned from a Detroit ceremony at which the National Office of the NAACP put the “N-word” to rest.
Community Funeral Home of Houma provided the free use of a casket for the ceremony. Attitudes and Designs, also of Houma, provided a funeral spray. And radio station KBZE 105.9FM broadcasted the ceremony live.
The Rev. Jamison Harris, also of the Rock of Ages Baptist Church in Houma, recounted a story of Frederick Douglass, who was still a slave at the time, when his master caught him reading.
“Reading will spoil the best [‘N-word] I can find,” Douglass quoted his master as having said.
Smith said the word is first noted in the Bible, in Acts 13: “Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Symeon who was called Niger.”
“Symeon is the man who carried the cross for Jesus Christ … so if you use the [N-word], which is what he is referred to in the Bible as, except with one “g” instead of two, then you are blaspheming the man who carried the cross of our savior,” Smith explained.
Whitney Lawson, youth council secretary, Terrebonne NAACP, said the word is “degrading.”
“I wouldn’t want someone to call me that,” she said. “Some of us like to call each other that. Then, when someone white calls us that, we want to jump crazy.”
Parker said the “N-word,” is freely used because of a lack of parental control.
“I hear kids on the street using the N-word all the time, some even disrespecting their parents. Yet, I do not see the control,” he said.
After the ceremony, Parker reflected, “What we did may not have covered the ground in one day, but someone had to take a stand in Terrebonne Parish.”
Jennifer Turner of Community Book Center, New Orleans’ largest African-American Book Center, listened to the broadcast over the radio and had a different opinion of the day.
Turner, who is an African-American, said other races use the “N-word” to describe African-Americans in a derogatory manner. However, African-Americans use it as a term of endearment when referring to a friend.
“My message to people is this – if you don’t use it, tell people don’t use it to me,” Turner said. “And if you don’t want to hear it, just say, ‘Look, I don’t use that.'”
“But, let’s be realistic,” she said. “You’re not going to get rid of that word. Even Malcolm X posed the question in one of his speeches. ‘What do you call a negro with a Ph.d.? A [N-word],” Turner said.
Pallbearers at Saturday’s service watch over the casket as the Terrebonne Parish NAACP buries the “N-word.” * Photo by HOWARD J. CASTAY JR.
