The N-word: To Be Or NOT To Be?

I undertook an hour’s drive to a suburb of Rochester, N.Y., the other day. The Greece school district was inviting all comers to a most improbable congress; an open forum on the use of the word “nigger.” Yep, you read that right. A local friend gave me a little

“Most people never listen.” –Ernest Hemingway

In Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, she told the story of a black youth who came to her, as a lawyer for the ACLU, complaining he was being targeted and framed by local police. He had stacks of paper, dates, reports, evidence, but Alexander didn’t believe him.

“Where’s the beef???”

I just wrote this long-ass reply on someone else’s blog, then realized hey, I just produced a whole new essay. And I ain’t posted on my own site in months. Why am I out here just givin’ it away like that? So here it is. The following is in

Global warming, the Easter Bunny, and white privilege

THIS IS MY OP-ED PIECE PRINTED IN THE ROCHESTER NY PAPER, DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE, ON SUNDAY 10/06/19–AND SUBSEQUENTLY POSTED ON IT’S PARENT PAPER’S WEBSITE, USA TODAY.COM–IN RESPONSE TO AN EARLIER PIECE BY A WHITE ROCHESTER BUSINESSMAN WHO DISPUTED THE EXISTENCE OF WHITE PRIVILEGE. So John Calia, an old white

“Pay No Attention To That Racism Behind The Curtain!”

“Ha, ha, ha!” LOL with the hardiest chortle I can muster. You know how you’ve always known something but one day it sort of clicks in a way that it never did before and you really “get it”? Racism was originally and has always been a way to control

“Cause he’s down by the pond playing hockey with the kids…”

The book White Fragility by sociologist Robin DiAngelo has enjoyed a run on the New York Times Best Seller List for nearly nine months. I still can’t quite understand why honestly, many white people have told me it was a real tough-love kind of read for them. In it,

Letter from a Williamsville Church

For nine days in 1963 the revered Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, charged with parading without a license. He had been called to the city by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring media attention to a sustained protest and business boycott being waged

Getting Your Hands Dirty

I just finished reading the book Love In The Driest Season by Washington Post writer Neely Tucker. Tucker, who is white, grew up in Holmes County, Mississippi, described in his book as “…the poorest, most predominantly black county in the poorest, most predominantly black state in America.” Despite his

Comfortably Numb

The following YouTube clip is from the movie Kindergarten Cop, where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a detective who goes undercover as a school teacher. The little boy’s statement is of course wildly inappropriate. Yet the teacher is foist into having to draft an adroit response that avoids embarrassing the tot,

Blame It On H.R.

At one of my previous jobs, there was one day when a bunch of us were talking and really cutting up about this, that, and the other thing. We were all feeling pretty chummy with one another when the guy next to me said something insensitive about gay people.

“My daughter’s boyfriend’s roommate’s nephew is black, so I understand….”

In 2013, personal fitness trainer Drew Manning wrote the book Fit2Fat2Fit. Manning was an absolute wrecking ball of a physical specimen. As a fitness pro though, he found he was losing left and right the clients in the most desperate need of his help. Over and over he heard

How To Make Black Friends 101

A 2013 study found that 75% of whites in America don’t have more than a passing acquaintance with any black people. At the workshop I facilitated on 5/26/18, “Honest And Effective Conversations About Race”, my content was geared toward a white audience. I hoped to attract more curious white

“Teach The Children Well”

When A-list actor Will Smith announced the end of his run as the star of the t.v. show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to pursue movies, I thought “that dude is done!” Typecast for years as a flaky teen, I just didn’t see him getting free from that. Now

When the holy man was asked, “How should we treat others?” His reply was, “There are no others.”

On the second Tuesday of May I finally made it to my first meeting of S.U.R.J. Buffalo. They are an organization of white folks showing up for racial justice. Since I first heard of them some months ago, I’ve wanted to make it to one of their meetings to

Nuance and News

I interviewed revered African American newsman Roland Martin ahead of his February 27, 2018, Canisius College address. Martin put forth that mainstream news media only recognizes race as a factor when it is overt; “a hood, a burning cross, or mention of the ‘N’ word. They don’t even realize

Black Panther: The Bigger Picture In The BIG Picture

The much-anticipated Marvel superhero movie Black Panther opened February 16, 2018, as an absolute cultural phenomenon in the U.S. What was driving all this unrivaled buzz? Comic books are big, big business. “Eight-year-old boys with their allowance money aren’t what’s keeping these doors open,” says Emil Novak, owner of

Nanette D. Massey

Writer, Diversity & Inclusion Workshop Facilitator

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