Question

“our nigger’s back!”
i don’t know what shawn saw on my face—whether it was shock,
anger or a vacant expression. whatever it was, he was delighted by it.
he’d found a vulnerability, a tender spot. it was too late to feign indiffer-
ence.
“don’t call me that,” i said. “you don’t know what it means.”
“sure i do,” he said. “you’ve got black all over your face, like a nig-
ger!”
for the rest of the afternoon—for the rest of the summer—that is
what he called me. i’d answered to the name a thousand times before
with indifference. now, i was alive to it.
i couldn’t articulate how the name made me feel. shawn meant it
to humiliate me, to lock me in time, into an old idea of myself. but
far from fixing me in place that word transported me. every time
he said it—“hey nigger, raise the boom” or “fetch me a level,
nigger”—i returned to the university, to that auditorium, where i
had watched human history unfold and wondered at my place in it.
the stories of emmett till, rosa parks and martin luther king
were called to my mind every time shawn shouted at me to move to
the next row. i saw their faces superimposed on every purlin shawn
welded into place that summer, so that by the end of it, i had finally
begun to grasp something that should have been immediately ap-
parent: that someone had opposed the great march toward equality;
someone had been the person from whom freedom had to be
wrested.

1. what does tara really mean

when she tells shawn that he
doesn’t know what the word
means?

1. how is tara connecting shawn’s use of the slur to the people and events she learned about in

history class at byu?

Explanation:

Question 8

Tara likely means that Shawn's use of the racial slur ("nigger") shows his ignorance of its harmful, racist meaning and the historical context of oppression it carries (like the struggles of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks, MLK for civil rights). His casual use implies he doesn't understand its dehumanizing impact and the fight for equality it's tied to.

Tara connects Shawn’s slur to history by recalling civil rights figures (Emmett Till, Rosa Parks, MLK) and their fights against racism/for freedom. She realizes Shawn’s casual use ignores the history of oppression the slur represents, and the struggle (wrested freedom) of those who fought for equality—showing the slur’s role in perpetuating inequality, opposite to the freedom struggles she learned about.

Answer:

Tara means Shawn’s use of the slur shows he’s ignorant of its racist, dehumanizing meaning and the historical struggle for equality it’s tied to (e.g., civil rights battles of Till, Parks, King), as he uses it casually without grasping its harm.

Question 9