| Many
of us have a humorous little anecdote about the confusion
of pronouncing the country of Niger. Here’s mine:
On Christmas
Day, when I was six years old, my grandmother gave me a globe
as a present. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed,
but at the same time, it was a small step up from the clothes
they usually bought me. Progress was progress, I figured.
I put the
globe in the corner of my desk, not planning to ever look
at it again. Unfortunately, with life being the bore that
it can occasionally be for a middle-class six-year-old, there
eventually came a day where looking at the globe was the best
option for stimulating my mind. After wiping away the thick
layer of dust that had accumulated, I began to look over the
countries out of mere curiosity. Being too young to see the
humor in ‘Uruguay’ and too intelligent to find
any humor in Italy being shaped like a boot, the world was
seemingly one giant, round, dull motherfucker.
However, when
I reached the continent of Africa, everything changed, completely.
The first time my eyes glazed over the country of Niger, I
did a double take. I had trouble accepting the idea that a
nation could have such a name, given our society’s social
stigma on a certain N-word. I looked at it again for a few
more seconds and when the reality of its existence finally
sunk in, I couldn’t help it, I laughed hysterically.
The reason
I laughed so hard was because of my logic at the time, which
was as follows:
1.) I had no idea ‘Nigger’ was spelled with two
G’s.
2.) A person from America is called an American.
3.) Therefore, a person from the country of Niger must be
a Nigger.
4.) Profanity is hilarious.
Flawless reasoning,
no? It gets even better.
Throughout
my short life, at various times, I had heard select family
members talk about “Niggers”. Usually while drunk
at parties, they would be yelling about nigger this and nigger
that, but more importantly, they would sometimes suggest that
niggers go “back where they came from”, without
ever identifying exactly where it was they came from. That’s
what got me so excited. I had seemingly discovered where niggers
came from, all by myself!
This discovery
was so exciting that there was simply no way I could keep
it to myself. I just had to share it with someone, so I ran
like the wind from my room down into the kitchen where my
mom was preparing dinner.
“Mom!
Mom!” I screamed, “Guess what?”
“What
is it?” my mother replied sweetly.
“I know
where niggers come from!”
My mother
immediately produced a shocked look on her face. But at the
same time, she couldn’t help but be curious, so she
answered with, “Where do they come from?”
“They
come from Nigger. The country of Nigger. Look, it’s
right here on the globe. In Africa, there’s a country
called Nigger.”
My mother
promptly corrected my error, albeit while fighting back laughter.
From that
day forward, I knew how to pronounce Niger correctly. The
only downside was that Niger’s comedic value had dropped
100%. In the end, I’m just glad that I got all this
out of my system when I was six.
And don’t
worry, I didn’t grow up to be racist. A liberal education
saw to that.
Printer
Friendly Version
Politically
Correct, Censored, Child-Friendly Version
-5.30.2007
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