Bonus: The N-Word is Both Unspeakable and Ubiquitous. 'Still Processing' is Back, and They're Confronting it.

The Daily

The New York Times

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4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2021

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Introducing the new season of “Still Processing.” The first episode is the one that the co-hosts Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris have been wanting to make for years. They’re talking about the N-word. It’s both unspeakable and ubiquitous. A weapon of hate and a badge of belonging. After centuries of evolution, it’s everywhere — art, politics, everyday banter — and it can’t be ignored. So they’re grappling with their complicated feelings about this word. Find more episodes of “Still Processing” here: nytimes.com/stillprocessing

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Michael.
0:03.1	This week, my colleagues, Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris begin the latest season of
0:08.0	their show, still processing, with a conversation about a single word, a word that has haunted
0:14.4	America for generations, and whose place in American life is still being debated to this
0:20.4	day.
0:21.8	Take a listen to this quick preview and to the entire episode.
0:28.7	When I lived in San Francisco, when I was 23 and 24 and 25 years old, I get on Muni,
0:37.6	and there'd be some Filipino kids or some Chicano kids, just hanging out on the subway
0:44.3	and wording each other.
0:46.6	And I'm like, I would go up to them as a recent college graduate and be like, yo, oh my
0:53.8	god, yo, I need to stop.
0:55.9	This is not your word.
0:57.6	You can say that.
0:58.6	Professor Morris.
0:59.6	This is, I mean, reporting for duty.
1:01.3	I love it so much.
1:02.3	Yeah, but I will report back to you that it didn't go anywhere.
1:06.8	They were like, get out of my face.
1:09.4	Yeah.
1:10.4	And I think part of what I was thinking or what I was trying to do was preserve it.
1:15.5	If I could just get it out of Chicano usage and just then I could sort of get black people
1:21.3	to stop using it too.
	...

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