Thread by @JamilSmith

If I had a child going to @Harvard, I’d want her or him to have as few classmates as possible with a history of saying “nigger” repeatedly. This wasn’t about free speech. It’s mainly about public safety. The decision shouldn’t be remotely controversial. on.theatln.tc/zqidTTW

For all the folks questioning how “nigger” could become a public safety issue for college students, a quick story. During my freshman year at Penn, I lived in a dorm that was populated almost completely by black students. One night during fall midterms, we started getting calls.

I got to the phone before any my roommates. It was more than 25 years ago, and I would recognize his voice today. Clear, calm. Smiling, but he didn’t sound like he was suppressing a laugh. Sociopathic. He enunciated the word.

“Is this the ‘nigger dorm’?”
“What?”
He repeated it.

I’d just turned 18, and that was the first time anyone had called me that. I remember thinking that I was lucky. What I don’t recall is how I responded—something like “there ain’t no niggers here.” But it wasn’t long before we were evacuating. Some students got much worse calls.

It was a bomb threat. Philly was cold that night as we all filed out and waited outside the dorm. Remember, this was during midterms. Wheoever this was probably had his or their timing down. They didn’t just want to antagonize us; they probably wanted us to fail out of school.

It was okay. DuBois College House was unharmed, as were we. I even wrote about it. But that is a relatively minor example of words like “nigger” contributing to a physically unsafe environment for black students at a predominantly white institution. So, no, it isn’t just a word.