There's about 5 weeks of the school year left, and I'm glad because the needle on my Japanese B.S.-Tolerance Gauge has been taking precarious dips in the red lately. Of course, I'm talking about JHS life.
So, in class yesterday, a third-year boy named Tetsuro said the word "nigger" to me, out of the blue. It actually sounded more like "nee gah," a mispronunciation byproduct of the effed-up speak known domestically as "Japanese English." Despite the mispronunciation, which sucked just about all of the impact out of the word, I picked up on it immediately. At the time, I was walking around the classroom preparing students to pair off to play a game. I'd just approached Tetsuro's desk, when he suddenly uttered the word, followed by a sheepish chuckle. The boy sitting across from him, Kauzuki instantly warned him to be quiet-- he knew better. In Japanese, I instantly asked "What did you say?" and "Who taught you that word?" Embarrassed, he clammed up, leaving Kazuki to answer in his stead "He doesn't know." I then calmly instructed him to not to say it again. He complied.
Now, for a split second, I was faced with the decision to get angry and blow the incident up into a major issue, which could have gotten ugly. But for some reason, I chose not to get upset, simply due to the fact that this 15-year old kid had no clue what world he was about to enter by trying to be funny, unmaliciously spouting some mangled word he heard from one of his wiseass friends, or probably read in some J-hip-hop magazine. The concept that he could he hospitalized just for saying that one word alone was miles over his head. That, and the fact that Tetsuro is one of the most unproductive kids in his grade and about as bright as a black hole actually made me feel sympathy for him. Obviously, a country-ass kid as dull as that couldn't come from parents too much brighter; afterall, he's not so much of a bad kid, he's just dumb as hell, so I couldn't really hold it against him, even though I wanted to smack him in the mouth. But, damn, hearing a racial epithet in an environment where I'm already virtually socially ostracized is like tossing a fat straw on a creaking camel's back. I really don't want to have to hurt any students, or teachers for that matter. I'm about 90% sure if it had been any J-person on the street, It would've gotten physical, joking or not.
These days I've been feeling like the brothas on the Brooklyn stoop of Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing"--Step on my Nikes and catch a beat-down.
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