Negro vs. Negro

I picked up a private class the other day and my first time meeting the students was.....interesting....and most definitely awkward. The director of the academy, who also happens to be from Canada, decided he wanted to join me for that first meeting. When I found that out, I figured I needed to mentally prepare myself, because that man? Strange doesn't even begin to describe. And sure enough, that mental preparation came in handy.

Everything was going as well as it could be when you have a class of 50 year old women who don't know English, although they've been in the class since October but are too impatient and lazy to actually study and do homework and so they learn nothing. Then, the class took a sharp left and we fell off a cliff. One of the women tried to make a vulgar joke and followed the fail of a joke with "Don't turn green from embarrassment! I know you can't turn red, because you're Black." My head most definitely tilted to the side on some "Bitch, what?!" I may even have a visual.....

There we go!

Then she stopped and solemnly said, "In the States you can't call a person negro, because they get very upset."

Dum, dum, duuum.

The director used that as his cue to explain the difference between negro in English and negro in Spanish. (Juuust in case you had any doubts, he did a horrible job and refused to let me jump in and save him.) He then proceeded to say that only other Black people can call each other 'negro' with their friends. And I quote from his most wonderful speech: "Like Juliet here, when she speaks with her friends, she uses this word, right?"

I'm sitting there, blank face on and all I can think is "Is this man talking about the word 'nigga' or 'negro'?" And if you need the visual for my most perfect blank face, direct your attention below.

After taking that moment to think it out, I politely turned to him and said, "I don't use the word." He was shocked and appalled.

If he had a string of pearls around his neck, I'm sure he woulda clutched them. If he could do such a thing, he woulda taken my "Black card" without a second thought. That's how appalled he was.

Somehow I navigated the class away from the subject and back to what we came there to do, which was to maybe learn English, and we (finally) ended the class. Needless to say I'm now looking for someone to take the class off my hands.