MISCHKE: The N-Word (ep. 128)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Garage Logic—MISCHKE: The N-Word (ep. 128)

Date: July 15, 2026
Guest: Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor (author, historian, daughter of Richard Pryor)
Main Focus: A deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation about the “N word”—its history, cultural context, personal impact, and unique gravity within American society—centered around Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor’s book Something We Said: Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word and Me.

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Episode Overview

This episode of Garage Logic features an extended, nuanced discussion about the power and legacy of the “N word” in American life. Host Tom Mischke, moved by Pryor’s new book and his own recent reflections, explores the history, pain, and debate around the word—sharing his personal journey and inviting guest Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor to reflect on her multifaceted relationship with it. Pryor—historian, professor, and daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor—shares insights from her research and memoir, discussing the word’s unique volatility, how it is experienced in classrooms and families, and her father’s complicated legacy of using (and ultimately rejecting) the word from the stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Word’s Unique Power and Pain (01:25–10:55)

• The host sets the stage by sharing his own evolution: as a white man, he thought context might justify use, especially in literature or quotation. But reading Pryor’s book and re-examining both his and others’ reactions shifted his understanding:
  • “It is a pretty good bet that this is the only show I'm ever going to do on the N word... Both [arguments for saying it] are only missing one thing. A complete and full understanding of the power of the word from a black person's point of view.” (01:25)
• Recounts a powerful example from The View where Whoopi Goldberg’s use of the word did not offend Sherri Shepherd, but hearing Barbara Walters (a white woman) say it did:
  • “That white skin and that word together stung. End of story.” (03:44–04:22)

2. Generational and Personal Encounters (15:40–20:58)

• Host describes his own childhood association of the word with hatred and violence; a shocking childhood moment when a relative uses the slur in a nursery rhyme, introducing him to its poisonous power in personal settings.
• Pryor explains everyone has a relationship to the word—victims, users, bystanders—and these encounters are unavoidable in American life:
  • “That's the crux of my argument is that especially as Americans, you know, we all have some kind of relationship with the word ... This word is bumped up against us in some way or another.” (15:15)

3. Teaching and Experiencing the Word in Academia (18:13–22:33)

• Pryor describes formative classroom moments at Smith College, including a white student quoting her father’s film Blazing Saddles—prompting confusion, discomfort, and a reckoning with both academic and personal stakes.
• Excerpt from Pryor’s TED Talk emphasizes that quoting or not quoting the word imposes real consequences:
  • “I decided to never say it, not even to quote it, but instead to use the euphemistic phrase, the N word. … The six letter word is like a capsule of accumulated hurt every time it is said … My black students tell me that when the word is quoted or spoken in class, they feel like a giant spotlight is shining on them.” (20:09–21:29)

4. The Double Standard and Community Debate (23:35–26:14)

• Explores frequent audience questions about why there is a “double standard”—why Black people can reclaim or use the word, but white people cannot.
• Guest and expert commentators explain the deep cultural context, comparing it to experiences outsiders cannot access (analogy: only overweight people can joke about weight).
  • “I would never say anything about someone's weight ... If a person is overweight and makes a joke about themselves ... that's for them to do ... but someone on the outside of that experience, I would never say anything.” —Caprice Hollins (24:11)
  • “If you're white and wondering why you can't say the N word, ask yourself this: Why do I care so much? And why do I even feel the need to say the word in the first place?” —Dr. Neal Lester (25:39)

5. Comedy, Co-opting, and Richard Pryor’s Legacy (30:20–36:37)

• Discussion shifts to Richard Pryor’s deliberate, boundary-pushing use of the word in comedy—how he both subverted and reflected racism back to white audiences.
  • “He started using it with intention. Right. He knew he was bringing something to the stage that would force his audiences to reckon ... Black people had reclaimed the word... in a subversive way as protest.” —Elizabeth Pryor (32:55)
• Pryor ultimately rejected the word after a 1979 trip to Kenya:
  • “Do you see any? I said, no. Do you know why? Because there aren't any. And it hit me like a shot, man... I ain't gonna never call another black man [the N word].” —Richard Pryor, quoted by co-host (35:24–36:37)

6. The Memoir, Parenting, and Personal Trauma (37:09–49:35)

• Pryor discusses why memoir was the only way to fully address the N word: its trauma is both national and intensely personal. Her own mother (white and Jewish) once raged and called her the word, never apologizing; Elizabeth recounts the “shocking” weight of that moment.
  • “The most shocking thing in my journey… was the way it represented not just national trauma, but these instances that were uniquely personal.” (38:13)
• Touches on complicated upbringings: Elizabeth’s biracial identity, her parents’ limitations, and her father’s childhood in a brothel.
  • “All of the time.” —on Richard Pryor being raised in a brothel, by his grandmother the madam (49:47)

7. Art, Vulnerability, and Lasting Connection (43:59–52:53)

• Pryor discusses her father’s unique humanity and openness in his art:
  • “My dad's vulnerability is what makes it possible for people to hear things they cannot easily hear from other people … He's able to really kind of nail that in a way that's so powerful.” (43:59)
• She describes the deep, unexpected sense of reconnecting with her father through the process of research and writing:
  • “This journey of mine, the process of writing the book … I feel him, and I feel his presence, and I feel like I get to know him and understand him, like, incrementally better and better than I did at the end of his life and maybe ever.” (45:49)
• Concludes with candid, loving recollections—Richard Pryor as a magical, supportive presence; the healing power of memory alongside personal and historical hurt.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the incommunicable pain behind the word:
  • “It's impossible for a white person to really grasp this fully, completely. We can get it intellectually… but we can't feel the word in our gut the way it's felt to the ears of someone who's black.” —Host (02:30)
• On Richard Pryor’s turning point:
  • “He's groundbreaking when he starts using the word, and in many ways groundbreaking when he stops using the word.” —Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor (34:19)
• On personal trauma:
  • “For a lot of people, that's a very shocking moment... the most startling thing to me wasn't that it happened. It was that the rest of her life. She never apologized.” —Host, on Pryor’s mother using the word (37:35)
• On reclaiming, resisting, and why some words are not for everyone:
  • “If a white guy says the N word and I hear it means I gotta fight him, even if I'm not that upset, I gotta fight him ... Feels like an alcoholic asking if they could have a sip of my drink. ... I don't understand why white people can't just accept the fact that there's just some shit you can't say.” —Black comedian segment (26:58)
• On vulnerability in art:
  • “My dad's vulnerability ... is what makes it possible for people to hear things ... He's able to really kind of nail that in a way that's so powerful.” —Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor (43:59)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening reflection on the N word’s power & personal journey: 01:25–04:22
• Barbara Walters & The View anecdote / context vs. impact: 03:44–04:22
• Intro to guest and book: 11:14–12:54
• Host’s childhood / personal experience: 15:40–18:13
• Elizabeth Pryor’s classroom experience / TED excerpt: 18:13–21:29
• Comparison to weight jokes—who “owns” the pain: 24:11–24:53
• Why some want to say the word, reflecting back to white audience: 25:39–26:14, 27:56–28:28
• Richard Pryor’s use and subsequent rejection of the word: 32:55–36:37
• Personal memoir and family pain: 37:35–38:13, 43:59–47:36
• Tender memories, healing, and legacy: 50:50–52:53

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Takeaways

• The conversation moves beyond the “should you/shouldn’t you” debate to explore the profound history, trauma, and identity invested in the N word.
• Context, intent, and even intellectual empathy cannot flatten or erase the uniquely sharp pain caused by the word’s utterance—especially from white lips.
• Pryor’s memoir illuminates both her father’s impact on American culture and the countless, often invisible ways the word weaves through individual lives across generations.
• Reclaiming the word within Black communities is an act with deep roots and varied meanings; from outside those communities, the word always retains its history’s full, scarring weight.
• Ultimately, the episode is neither a cautionary tale nor an argument—it is an invitation to understanding, self-examination, honest historical reckoning, and ethical restraint.

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Recommended for: Anyone seeking a deeper appreciation of America’s most potent slur—its history, emotional impact, ongoing debates—and for those interested in the art, vulnerability, and legacy of Richard Pryor as filtered through the eyes of his daughter.

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Transcript

[Host]

As technology becomes more complex, cyber reality dominates the culture and AI becomes an endless, anxious discussion. Simple, old human storytelling becomes all the more precious. And that's what you'll find on the Mishki Podcast. In the end, we're all just people. Folks with our brilliance and our absurdities and stories about people. Well, they never get old. The Mishke Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Co-host]

Mishki, mishki, mishki. Sam,

[Host]

It is a pretty good bet that this is the only show I'm ever going to do on the N word. And the reason I'm gonna do it is a book I just read. I think you'll be surprised to learn who the author is. I've watched the debate over the N word for years. Here's what I mostly hear. Let's just say the word and not make it such a big deal. Why say N word? Think. That's childish. That's one thing I often hear. The other is if blacks can say it in comedy and music, we all should be able to say it. That's the second thing I hear. Both of those statements are said with sincerity, and the people saying them believe they're speaking rationally, coherently, logically. They're only missing one thing. It's a critical thing, but it's just one thing. A complete and full understanding of. Of the power of the word from a black person's point of view. The power of those two syllables, whatever power you think those syllables have, it's that times a hundred, times a thousand. I used to think, depending on the context, you could justify saying the N word out loud. But due partially to this book I've just read by the daughter of a man most of you will know, and due to a deep dive that I've done into this topic over the last several days, I've come to realize the word's power is beyond anything I've ever fully, completely, wholly understood. That's not shocking. I'm a white guy. It's impossible for a white person to really grasp this fully, completely. We can get it intellectually, and there is, of course, even empathetic possibilities, but we can't feel the word in our gut the way it's felt to the ears of someone who's black. I don't believe that's possible. Anyway. I used to think context mattered. If you were quoting Mark Twain and a few black folks were around, you could read aloud and everyone would understand. What's astounding to me and what changes everything is that I've come to learn that the biggest reason many blacks would prefer to never hear the word from

[Interviewer]

the lips of someone with white skin

[Host]

is, is that just those two syllables all by themselves, spoken aloud by someone with white skin, sting to a certain degree, regardless of context. You can say it shouldn't sting. You can say buck up. You can say anything you want as a white person in response. But I would argue you'd be sounding a tad callous, a a bit tone deaf, and as a white person, a little embarrassing. Because the comeback could be, why are you pushing so hard to be able

[Interviewer]

to say that word?

[Host]

I mean, are you really into that word or something? I'll tell you the real wake up call that occurred for me recently. I had read this book called Something We Said. Something we said. Not something we say, no past tense, Something we Said. And in the book, I read of the author's wish that the N word be taken out of people's vocabulary, particularly white people, that we just go with N word. Her argument got me to do some research into this word. And it was in the midst of watching a long ago clip from the View that it really hit me. Barbara Walters was talking about a hunting camp leased by former Texas governor Rick Perry's family. At the entrance to that hunting camp for years was a rock with N word head written on it, a common slur painted on large dark rocks or boulders way back when as a slur against blacks. Again, N word obviously spelled out and then head. And there was an uproar about this because Perry was running for president at the time. So Barbara Walters was talking about it on the View, and so was Whoopi Goldberg. And Sherry Shepherd, a black woman on the panel, was simply listening when Whoopi Goldberg used the word in her report of the story. That didn't bother Sherry Shepherd. When Barbara Walters used the word, it did. Same word, same context, same few minutes, same panel, same discussion. And that didn't matter to Sherri Shepherd. And you could tell it really bothered her. Hearing Barbara Walters say it. Regardless of whether you think it should, it doesn't matter. You could tell it did. So what became so clear to me was the sound of the word coming out of Barbara Walters mouth all by itself had a sting regardless of context. That white skin and that word together stung. End of story. Did it sting intensely? No, but enough for her to say it bothered her two syllables that Sherri shepherd probably never liked hearing coming out of the mouth of. Of anyone with white skin. Those syllables were said and it sucked some of the air out of the room. Welcome to the power of the word. My guess is there are millions of Sherry Shepherds out there. Is it the end of the world, what Barbara Walters did? Of course not. Was it innocent on her part? Of course it was. Does that change anything? Uh, what I've learned is there is a reason that this is the only word we don't say out loud now. It has become the N word. It's been that now for a while. Yeah, if you're black, you get to say it. Some still choose not to. Others say it all the time. But there isn't the history of its horrific bite coming out of the mouth of one with black skin so it doesn't sting. The history is with the white skin. And this is the whole story. It is bracing to learn the awful, almost unimaginable power this word has because of all it contains. Represents points to shines a light on. It's really staggering. The NAACP tried to have a national funeral for the word, put it in its grave. Didn't work. It's still out there anyway. There are now millions of Americans who the rest of their days will say N word in place of the actual word any time that word is referred to. And that is really an extraordinary thing in the history of language. And I will be back with my guest and her book right after this break. There's a feeling you get when you walk onto a Fury Motors lot that you cannot get anywhere else. And no one's really been able to explain what why that is. But people do talk about it. They'll say, yeah, you'll have to go feel it for yourself. Not sure how to explain it. Over 60 years now, and somehow, in an industry built on skepticism, Fury Motors has the highest customer satisfaction rating you'll ever encounter. Not because they try harder than everyone else, but because Tommy and Jimmy Leonard never once forgot what this business is supposed to feel like. What their dad taught em. I was lucky enough to hang out with their dad before he died. Old Red Leonard boy. Walk in and you'll Understand within about 30 seconds why Red spirit makes the whole place feel so different. It's not a sales floor that comes at you when you arrive. It's a heartbeat. It's a gold standard for car dealerships. It's Fury Motors. Four locations now. Stillwater South, St. Paul, Waconia and Forest Lake. Feel the difference? Find Fury. I've been telling you this month that there's a deal waiting for you at MSP Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing, Heating, Air and Electric. They took the 250 years of the US of A and the 108 years of MSP put them together and said, let's take $358 off any heating or cooling equipment purchased from Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing, heating, air and electric. Let's make it just for the month of July. We don't want to be giving away the store month after month, but let's do it for the month of July. If you've been wanting to take care of that AC in your house, now's the time. August 1st. This deal doesn't exist anymore. $358 off by calling MSP and you can find [e-mail] I don't know how

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor (excerpt from TED Talk)]

you feel about the title of your

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

album, but I find it difficult to say you do.

[Co-host]

It's hard to say crazy.

[Host]

You tell them the title of the album.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I can't say crazy.

[Co-host]

The title of the album is My dad that Crazy.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor (excerpt from TED Talk)]

See, now you can just say that.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Would you get mad?

[Co-host]

I'd punch you out.

[Interviewer]

I have a guest this hour and I'm looking forward to our conversation. Her name is Elizabeth Storter Prior, and she is coming to me from Massachusetts. Is that right, Elizabeth?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yep.

[Interviewer]

You're out in Massachusetts. Lovely part of the country. We're going to talk about a wonderful book she has written called Something We Said, Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word and Me. The N word is well known as one of the most volatile, one of the most charged, one of the most incendiary and controversial words in our language, in the English language. It's a word that Elizabeth has not only spent years researching and teaching about as a professor at Smith College out in Massachusetts, but also a word she has observed up close as the daughter of Richard Pryor, the extraordinary comedian who several decades ago shot that word right into the center of American culture, forcing many of us in the country to face it head on and come to terms with it. In her long road toward fully understanding this very troubling word and its history and its place in her life and in her father's life, Elizabeth has amassed enough knowledge and enough wisdom to fill a book and a fascinating book. And that book has indeed been written. Again. It's called Something We Said, Richard Prior, A Notorious Word and Me. I welcome her to the show now.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Interviewer]

You have done a lot of interviews. You've talked to a lot of people already about this book.

[Host]

Is the experience comfortable for you?

[Interviewer]

Is it sometimes frustrating to you, depending on who's interviewing you? Is it ever contentious? What has it Been like doing the interviews themselves.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I've been having a blast, to be honest. Part of the story, if you read my book, is that I didn't talk publicly about my father being Richard Pryor until I started doing this project. And it's been really fun, kind of stepping in publicly to that part of my identity. I've not done it much before this, so that's been really fun. I've enjoyed most of the interviews and I'm excited about it too, because I'm a teacher at Smith College, a historian. And the conversation I want to be having is about how this word is a stand in for some of our larger issues in American society. And I feel like most people have been willing to have that conversation with me. So that's been really fun too.

[Interviewer]

I'm not sure every person listening to me gets why we are going to say N word for this entire show. It's going to sound weird to have a long discussion where we say N word this entire interview. But I'm aware that as weird as it will sound, and it will sound weird, it would actually be more jarring to use the N word conversationally. You, as a black woman, have also chosen to avoid using that word in your life. It's been removed from your vocabulary. I have found it quite easy in life to follow the suggestion that we not use that word. Can you say N word instead of the actual six letter word? It's not a law, it's not a rule. The suggestion that we not use that word. What I thought about for the first time after reading this book is the way everyone perhaps has a different relationship with this word. And when I say everyone, white, black, whatever your world was from the time you were born to right now, you have some relationship with this word somehow, some way. Right.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

That's the crux of my argument is that especially as Americans, you know, we all have some kind of relationship with the word, whether we're the victims of it or we said it when we were children, or grapple with what to do in a free speech scenario. This word is bumped up against us in some way or another.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I want to let you know my

[Host]

relationship with word because I think it's

[Interviewer]

important for the conversation. I now have read your book and I know yours. I know your relationship. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. No one in my house growing up used the word. Eight kids, two parents. Not once did I hear it. When I say not once did I hear it in the family. I'm talking in the family where I would Come upon, it was in the mass media. And it would most often be coming out of the mouth of a pretty hate filled Southerner during the civil rights struggle. And I was taking that in through some kind of media. Now, I'm well aware Southerners who thought of blacks as lesser were not the only ones using the N word. I'm well aware it was used in the north too. But I'm telling you of my experience as a child with this word. I grew up thinking of the N word as something that when it came out of the mouth of a white guy, it came out with a southern accent. And it came out of the mouth of someone who was up for doing some really heinous things. That this word being said was sort of spit out. It wasn't just said, it was spit. And it came with a desire to inflict one profoundly cruel acts on people. In other words, the word was scary to me as a kid. It was a scary word said by scary people. That's how I viewed it then. A relative of mine when I was young visited from Florida. We were in the midst of deciding something in the backyard based on using eenie, meeny, miny, mo. Yeah, for me and my friends growing up, that rhyme went, eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe. It was a startling moment for me when instead of tiger, this relative used the N word. It was shocking for me. And that would be the beginning of my hearing the N word in personal situations outside of mass media. The next times would be in high school, but it would come out of the mouth in high school of somebody I already didn't like very much from somebody who already was kind of creepy. Certainly I'm somebody at 63 years of age now who, if someone says, hey, can you say N word instead of the actual six letter word? I say, yeah, that'll be pretty easy. I know there are people out there who that statement I just said that doesn't roll off their tongue quite as easily. Can you paint a picture for my listeners of what happens in your classroom? Obviously, there's too much to get to in a short interview, but in the

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

room, what's talked about in my second semester teaching in 2010, I was teaching about an aspect of the Civil War. And one of my students raised their hand and said, have you seen Blazing Saddles? And this is a 1974 satirical film that was written by my father along with Mel Brooks. And so the student was too excited to contain herself and then ended up quoting a line from the Film that had a slur for Chinese people and the N word. But she said the actual words, and I got shook. I did not know what to do. My brain was going everywhere. And that's sort of what launched this journey. Now, I think of that moment largely as a haunting that it's not a coincidence that my student raised the specter of my father in that conversation. So I had many a conversation with my students, most of whom, but not all, are white. I looked at my own life, I looked at the history of the word. And I started with a very academic sort of free speech debate. And very quickly, my students started kind of confessing their own, what I call points of encounter with the N word, their own moments of fear and confusion. It reminded me of sex before sex education. Like, the students knew about the N word, but they didn't really know what it meant, and they didn't know the history, and they didn't know when they were supposed to say it and when they weren't supposed to say it and if it was okay. You know, a lot of my students, they would feel like by not quoting verbatim the N word in something that they were doing dirty by black authors, they felt like it was their obligation to quote that word.

[Interviewer]

Here's a clip from Elizabeth's TED Talk, delivered before ever writing the book

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

the N Word.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor (excerpt from TED Talk)]

I'm a professor of US History. It's in a lot of the documents that I teach. So I had to make a choice. After consulting with someone I trusted, I decided to never say it, not even to quote it, but instead to use the euphemistic phrase, the N word. Even this decision was complicated. I didn't have tenure yet, and I worried that senior colleagues would think that by using the phrase, I wasn't a serious scholar. But saying the actual word still felt worse. The incident in my classroom forced me to publicly reckon with the word, the history, the violence, but also anytime it

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

was hurled at me, spoken casually in

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor (excerpt from TED Talk)]

front of me, anytime it rested on the tip of someone's tongue, it all came flooding up in that moment, right in front of my students. And I had no idea what to do.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

The six letter word is like a

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor (excerpt from TED Talk)]

capsule of accumulated hurt every time it is said. My black students tell me that when the word is quoted or spoken in class, they feel like a giant spotlight

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

is shining on them.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor (excerpt from TED Talk)]

One of my students told me that his classmates were like bobbleheads, turning to gauge his reaction.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

We've had many riveting conversations over the years, I have to say, but I think it speaks to kind of some of the larger nebulousness around this word and the language. And students were eager to learn and to find out who are they in relation to the word and how should they proceed?

[Interviewer]

Do you find yourself talking to a white student who's saying, I would really like to occasionally be able to say this word without being judged negatively? Are there not ways that I could use the word where it would not be, hey, hey, hey, hey, what are you doing there? And where you explain from your perspective why it would just be better not to use the word? And that person says, yeah, I don't get it. I don't get what you're saying. It's not making any sense to me at all.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, there have been a couple of situations. I've got to be honest. Most of the students actually in some ways err on the other side, which is that they say that they have nothing to say about it because they're not black. And I just don't think that's true. From what I've heard from student after student is they've been in a situation, forced to engage with this word, the racism that it represents, and not known how to respond. So they'll tend to defer to the black students, which ends up, in some ways, putting the black students on the spot. But I have had a few, and I remember this particular student was, like, in their 30s, and they were like, I don't know. I think everybody should just buck up. I feel like I'm being policed whenever anybody tries to tell me not to say the word. And I was trying to put my thoughts together when a black student did speak up and said, you know, that's the problem with the N word is that every time it said, I'm being policed, you're talking about a feeling. I'm talking about real violence.

[Interviewer]

The great Chuck D of Public Enemy actually went on Twitter recently and he called for the ban of the N word on Twitter. Not in society. You're never gonna be able to pull that off. But on this particular platform, it's the most dangerous word in the human language.

[Caprice Hollins]

Yeah.

[Port Orchard Viewer]

Tonight's frequently awkward question from a Port Orchard viewer. I find the N word to be quite offensive. I don't use it. But why does that word seem to be perfectly okay for African Americans to use within their own group? The answer from King5, race consultant and co founder of Cultures Connecting Caprice Hollins.

[Caprice Hollins]

There's a lot of division, even in the black community about whether or not that word is appropriate. As a woman who's always been small, I would never make any comments about someone who's overweight. I don't understand the pain that comes with that. I don't understand any suffering, the discrimination that comes with it. If a person is overweight and makes a joke about themselves or makes a joke about weight, that's for them to do, and that's for them to question whether or not that's an okay thing to do. But someone on the outside of that experience, I would never say anything about someone's weight.

[Race Consultant (Caprice Hollins or another commentator)]

Who's allowed to say the N word? Honestly, not many people, only black people

[Host]

are allowed to say the N word point blank. I don't have a problem with any other black people saying it.

[Race Consultant (Caprice Hollins or another commentator)]

I don't want people to ever forget

[Interviewer]

that that was the last word that some black men or women would have heard before they were killed, before they were raped, before they were assaulted.

[Dr. Neal Lester]

CNN received a complicated question from a viewer. Why can black people say the N word but white people can't?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I don't want to dismiss the question.

[Interviewer]

What I'm saying is that that question question is so loaded with nuance that

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

is actually more about the person asking the question than it is about the question.

[Dr. Neal Lester]

That's Dr. Neal Lester. He created the first college course focused solely on studying the N word. Now, it's worth pointing out that not all black folks feel the same about using the N word. Take the NAACP. In 2007, the group held a funeral for the N word, hoping to bury the word in all its variants once and for. But there are black people who still use the word and some white people still asking why they can't. So if you're white and wondering why you can't say the N word, ask yourself this. Why do I care so much? And why do I even feel the need to say the word in the first place?

[Black Comedian]

N word is a tricky word. You know, I told a joke about the N word at another show. The crowd got real quiet, like it just did. I felt bad. So I tried to do crowd work to loosen them up, make them have fun again. And it worked. People started having a good time. They forgot what I was talking about. I forgot what I was talking about. When I wanted to finish the joke, I go, what was I just talking about? And this white lady in the back yells out, You laugh at that shit. But that other audience did not. They were horrified. They all gasped. They're like, hit her.

[Caprice Hollins]

Hit her.

[Black Comedian]

I'm not gonna hit her. If it was a white guy, maybe I Would have been more upset. Only because it puts a lot of pressure on me as a black dude. Like, I don't know if you know this or not, but if a white guy says the N word and I hear it means I gotta fight him, even if I'm not that upset, I gotta fight him. It's in the black dude contract for some reason, and I gotta win the fight. Cause if I lose, that means he gets to say it again. Anytime a white guy asks me if they can say the N word, feels like an alcoholic asking if they could have a sip of my drink. It's probably harmless, but it's a slippery slope. I don't wanna be. I don't wanna be responsible for that. I don't understand why white people can't just accept the fact that there's just some shit you can't say.

[Black Speaker]

And the second thing I know is true about all white folks is that all of y' all wanna say a little bit, right? Cause it's the only thing in America you can't just freely do. You gotta think about it. You gotta make sure the coast is clear. You know, you see a group of black people in the corner, they tossing n words around like they juggling knives. You think to yourself, ooh, dangerous. I wish I could participate.

[Race Consultant (Caprice Hollins or another commentator)]

People always wanna know who can say the N word and who can't say the N word. You know, like, people always like, I've got a lot of, you know, I've got a lot of white friends. And they're all just kind of like, oh, you know, man, I wish I could say that stuff. And it sounds so cool when you say it in rap song. Like, I want to say that it sounds cool. I'm just like, ah. It doesn't really, like, do anything. It's not that great, you know.

[Interviewer]

And my wife, when, you know, he was like, well, what can I do to say it? Why people so damn persistent? I see why y' all successful. You negotiate everything. Well, I hear your angle, but what if. If I dig a tunnel up under here, how do I get to the N word? One of the things that I'm struck by is how when the word is said and it's coming out of the mouth of someone with white skin, how that is felt. If there's a black person in the room, no matter the context. No matter the context. Literally, no matter the context, I have learned, and it's partially through your book, but also through what your book got started in me, which I started to go deep into this. And I Could see the sting in something that contextually is fine. Fine contextually. Those two syllables said are just so packed that even in that context there was a sting. Now there are degrees to the sting. Maybe it wasn't the biggest sting in the world, but there was a sting. And I get it. Your big thing is, let's have a conversation about it. You love the conversation. You're not a big fan of preaching and I like the conversation too, because

[Host]

no one is saying you can't say the word.

[Interviewer]

No one is saying there should be

[Host]

a law against it. You want to say the word, say the word. Free speech. Say it. You're for a conversation having to do

[Interviewer]

with why not saying it might be best. You're born to a white Jewish mother and Richard Pryor as your father. You don't meet your father till you're six years old. The first meaningful conversation you ever have with your dad is a conversation where you have been called the N word at school. I can't imagine what your dad felt

[Host]

when he learned you had been called

[Interviewer]

that, but I know he felt strong enough to tell you to physically do something about it. The next time tells you something right there. This is a man who would, in his career come to place the N word front and center in American entertainment. He would help open the door, in other words, to its use by black artists and in comedy, in hip hop. And when your dad started using it in his comedy, it was shocking to me. I loved your dad's comedy and I want to say more than loved his comedy. I don't know your dad. I have no connection to your dad whatsoever. But I weirdly feel I love him. And I mean that.

[Host]

And I.

[Interviewer]

And I mean that in a. In a way separate from his comedy. There was a thing that I think people could pick up, I certainly did with Richard Pryor was there was a sensitivity. He was a very lovable human being. But when he started using the N word, it was shocking to me. It was glaringly obvious he was using it in a different way. So it lost all that feeling it had when I heard it growing up with the civil rights movement. But I wasn't sure what he was doing exactly. And it was causing me to think. And your dad was very good at both getting me to laugh and think. That's no small skill. It is not hard to see how when you are called a word that packs so much violence behind it that you take some of the terror out of it by co opting it. It's not hard for me to see why people take words that are used derogatively and bring them closer, not push them away. Queer would be an example. I get it. I get all that. And he also, by using it, held a mirror up. So it wasn't just grabbing it and owning it. It was also, I'm gonna turn it back on white America. And that's the part that got me thinking. When he'd do that and then I'd think differently about it. I'd see things through his eyes.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Well, I mean, he started using it with intention. Right. He knew he was bringing something to the stage that would force his audiences to reckon Right. With their own racism. And many of his audiences, not always, but many of his audiences at the beginning of his career were the beginning of the career where he found his voice. He had a whole other career where he was much more like a vaudevillian, almost like, you know, like on Ed Sullivan's show. And. But then he had this epiphany in 1967 where he just realized he wasn't speaking in his authentic voice on stage and that he didn't want to do the work anymore if he wasn't able to do that. And part of that was to bring to the stage the kind of ways that black people in his all black neighborhood had reclaimed the word. And there is a way that black people have been doing that for, you know, not just in the 1970s with Black Power, but have been doing that for decades. And my research shows for centuries in the United States that they'd been using the N word in a subversive way as protest. So, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, so he's groundbreaking when he starts using the word, and in many ways groundbreaking when he stops using the word.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it has to be stated right out front that before Richard Pryor died, long before he decided he wasn't going to use the word anymore after a trip to Kenya.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

It's just a short decade that really. It's emblazoned on his albums. And by the end of that decade, he goes to Kenya and he has his own, like, moment of taking stock.

[Interviewer]

He's in Kenya for three weeks. And, you know, the word is used in the United States around United States black citizens. And there's this whole culture around it here. And he jettisons out of that. The only thing similar where he is is he also sees black skin. In this case, nothing but black skin. But everything is different there. Everything is different. And the word doesn't make any sense anymore. It just says what, you know, but then he asked, if it's absurd here, then it's absurd, and let's not.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

That's right. That's right.

[Black Speaker]

I was leaving, and I was sitting

[Co-host]

in the hotel, and a voice said to me, said, look around. What do you see? Do you see any? I said, no. Do you know why? Because there aren't any. And it hit me like a shot, man. I started crying. I was sitting there. I said, yeah, I've been here three weeks. I haven't even said it. I haven't even thought it. And it made me say, oh, my God, I've been wrong. I've been wrong. I got to regroup. I ain't gonna never call another black man. That's a word that's used to describe our own wretchedness, and we perpetuate it. That word's dead. We men and women, we come from the first people on the earth. You know, first people on the earth were black people. So you can take it for what it's worth. I know. Like, I ain't trying to preach nothing over. I'm just talking about my feelings about. I don't like it when black people say it to me. I really don't no more. So I love y', all, and you take that with you.

[Interviewer]

And he was kind of inspired, was he not, to do that trip by what was very, in fact, at the time, I believe, the most popular series in the history of television. The Roots miniseries.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yes. Alex Haley's dive into his own family history, which he fictionalized. But it's a deeply researched book and became this very famous miniseries. And my dad was inspired by that. And so were many African Americans with the resources to go to Africa to look for their roots.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it was a marvelous awakening. And there's just so many lessons there separate from the N word itself in that experience of humanity. Your dad's trip to Kenya. I understand why the memoir works best. You didn't want to write a memoir. You're not someone who really gets into telling your life story. But to get at this, it was best through a memoir.

[Host]

Because not only do you have this

[Interviewer]

thing with your dad and this conversation, not only do you have this thing with your dad and how he gets known in the culture for his use of the word, but you have a white Jewish mother who, in a rage one time, when you're 12 years old, uses the word against you. For a lot of people, that's a very shocking moment. I will say, the most startling thing to me wasn't that it happened. It was that the rest of her life. She never apologized. So this N word weaves itself into your life to the point where to address all of this memoir works best.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

That was really important to me because there are some academic books on the N word that are good. But what I felt like, for me, the most shocking thing in my journey of discovery as I started researching the word was the way that it represented. Didn't just represent this national trauma, but these instances that were uniquely personal. That's what made it such a kind of triggering, explosive word is it's not just the things we talked about before. Slavery, lynching, on and on and on, but it's this moment between my mother and me and many others that I discuss in the book. In fact, I've had so many run ins with the N word in my life that not all of them appear in the book. And I've even had friends who remind me of other ones that I didn't even remember because there's been so many. So it's like, here's a way of mapping out my own reality is through this touch point. And I thought memoir was required. I didn't want to. I did not want to write a memoir. I'm a very logical person, thinking person, and very literal. And so memoir didn't seem like it had the juice in my mind to do the work. But no matter what I did, I knew that my story mattered. My story was part of this history of the N word that I'm telling, and it was part of what happened in the classroom, and it was certainly part of my relationship with my father.

[Co-host]

Racism is a bitch. I mean, white people, you gotta know what it does to black people is a bitch. Because no matter what, what, it's hard enough being a human being. It's hard enough just to be that. Just to go through everyday life is hard enough just to walk through life decent as a person. But here's another element added to it. When you're black is enough to make you crazy. If you're in an argument with another man. It may be white, but it's man on man for a minute. And the get rough. He end up calling you. You gotta go, oh, shit, now I ain't no man no more. Now I got to argue with that shit and throw my balance all off now. But it's a ugly thing. I hope someday they give it up.

[Host]

I have been pitched a lot of sponsors over the years. Most of them, I can try to talk myself into this one here. I didn't have to. I toured the Wellshire myself, both locations, Bloomington and Medina. And I want to tell you what stuck with me because it wasn't the amenities. Even though the amenities are real. There's a town square vibe there, a cinema, a library, a barbershop, a salon built so that walking through your day still feels like walking through a real life, not a hallway. But what stuck with me was the staff. I watched a caregiver kneel down to eye level with a resident before saying a single word to him. I watched someone in the barbershop take the same care with an elderly man's collar that you'd expect at a place with a hundred dollar haircut. I watched a staff member hug a woman who was feeling low. I watched another staff member sit at a dining table with a resident who. Who was eating all by herself. That's something that happens because the people who work at the Wellshire actually love the people they're caring for. And love changes everything. Love changes the way your loved one's day goes. And that's why you want them at the well shire of Bloomington and Medina. I remember sitting down with Mike Bilski, the guy behind North American Banking Company and hearing him talk about his pop, a banker. I love hearing about a father having done the same thing a son does. The son must have been impressed to want to keep being a banker like the old man. Then I learned I could have talked to Mike Bilski's old man and heard him tell similar stories about his dad. And then I learned I could have talked to Mike Bilski's grandpa and heard similar stories about his dad. Four generations of bankers, what have they

[Interviewer]

created with North American Banking company The

[Host]

neighborhood bank, that endangered species, that wonderful thing that never should have gone away but has gone away thanks to the big national chains, the old fashioned way of banking, where the fact that they know about you, know where you live, know your neighborhood, know your business changes things when it comes to things like a loan, home loan, personal loan, business loan that you walking in the door comes with a hello and your first name remembered. That changes the way it feels to do business with a bank. Find North American Banking Company. There are six locations in the Twin Cities. There's one near you.

[Interviewer]

Member fdic. Equal housing lender. I mentioned earlier that your father seemed to me from the distance I was from him, a very sensitive guy. I didn't get the sense that your mother was as sensitive. In the same way I do get the sense that you are. I'm wondering if that is one of the things you take from Your dad.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, my dad's vulnerability, I think, is what makes it possible for people to hear things that they cannot easily hear from other people. Because he's saying. I mean, he's very funny. If you're not familiar with Richard Pryor, run out and go listen to Richard Pryor. He's brilliant, but he's also, like, talking about real stuff. And I don't know how he does it, but manages to frame the humor of it. He's able to really kind of nail that in a way that's so powerful. I think the delivery works because of his vulnerability, because he's centering himself, and it's honest. My mother didn't have the. Her feelings were hurt all the time for reasons that were hard to understand, but she didn't have the sensitivity of really feeling. She wasn't an empath. She couldn't feel other people's feelings.

[Interviewer]

I see.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah.

[Caprice Hollins]

But.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. And so I feel like, you know, in my classroom, I often lead with my vulnerability, whether I mean to or not. I see this in my siblings. So I think it's something that my father passed on to all of his children, this kind of earnestness in us. And I think it's a pretty cool thing for him to have passed on.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And one of the really wonderful things I learned in other interviews I listened to was how this book has sort of created a deeper, more powerful relationship with your father that you thought ended with his death. Contrary to ending with his death, it has grown and blossomed mostly through the work you've done on this book. So, again, another benefit of going the direction of memoir.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I mean, when he died in 2005, I was like, wow, that's it. That's the end. And it was brutal. His illness, very awful and very sad. And so I kind of figured that was that. But this journey of mine, the process of writing the book, process of talking about the book, even now, I feel him, and I feel his presence, and I feel like I get to know him and understand him, like, incrementally better and better than I did at the end of his life and maybe ever.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I really get that. For those who don't know, Richard Pryor died of Ms. And some people would say the most difficult thing of reading the book was hearing your mother called you the N word. I would say the most difficult thing is reading about the end of his life with you and him. He has ms, but not just Ms. I believe a doctor said he had the most acute form of Ms. He had ever come across. Extraordinarily rough. At the end, you. You're not even able to get a word out of him. He has handlers at the end, and I'm not sure who all is in charge at different times, but ridiculous moves are made that are profoundly hurtful to you and that are very hard to read about. And you have that as your last memories after he dies. And. And then with this book, you dove into his work and into his life, and a new man is able to appear, not the man who was in that wheelchair unable to speak.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah, it's true.

[Caprice Hollins]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Thank you. It was really hard to write about that, and I actually had a lot more description on the page, and everybody who read it was like, I can't. I can't. Please pull it back. Pull it back. Because it was that harsh.

[Interviewer]

For those who are wondering, there are beautiful memories, wonderful memories. You had a rough run. I would say everybody. In the lottery of life, you get this family. And some people have an easier time than others. As a kid, having to negotiate this world of. You're growing up. Birth to six. Hey, what's going on? I've got this white Jewish mother, and

[Host]

I'm in this white world.

[Interviewer]

And you knew something was a little different about you, but you weren't sure what. One day you're introduced to your father. Oh, thank you. This guy's looking a little like his skin is similar to mine. Separate from that, there's just not having that emotionally wise, skillful parenting that you sure could have used.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Yeah. I mean, I read a memoir by Julie Lythcott Haynes, I think Real American. She's exactly my age. She had a black father and a white mother. Her father is a professor at the University of Wisconsin. I could not finish the book because her parents were so keyed in emotionally to what it would be like for her to be a biracial human growing up in the 1970s, that it was like, torture for me to read it because it was like. I mean, the book is beautiful, but knowing that there are people who did this differently was really hard. Was really hard for me. And honestly, my parents did the best they could. It's not. I mean, this is not no mommy dearest at all. But it's just there are very few guidebooks.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I don't know how many people know this. I didn't know this about your father, and maybe I just forgot it. He was brought up at least part of the time in a brothel.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

All of the time.

[Host]

All of it.

[Interviewer]

Okay. And his grandma was the madam.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

That's Right.

[Interviewer]

He grows up around sex work. So I have. I have no ability whatsoever to grasp what that would do.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

I'm sure that there were very important influences. I need to learn more because I'm teaching a course now called Richard Pryor's America. So I need to be on my game about this. But I think there was just for him as a person reckoning with his own demons, like the lore is that he looked out on a Las Vegas stage and said. Looked at the audience from the stage and said, my own grandmother would not be welcome in this theater. The woman who raised me.

[Interviewer]

Within all of that, you can look at his artistry and marvel at his artistry and the humanity in his artistry and the part of his true self he allows you to see and the authenticity and the beauty. And you have your own memories of beauty. Can you offer a couple to people listening right now?

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Honestly, he was a magical person. One of my favorite memories is I was in an improv class when I was gonna say 16, and he came to our showcase. And I remember they give you a few words and you have to use the word in the skit. And I remember I said something like, a man is just a man, but a cigar is a smoke. And I don't know why that was funny, but that's the character that I was putting on. And my dad roared with laughter from the audience. And that was like. I made him laugh. That was like the best. The best feeling. There's so many tender moments, like, with him where he'd get quiet. I remember asking him because he had this. I just was looking at this in an old Jet magazine. But he had this property in Hawaii for many years that he loved. That was his sanctuary. And the house was so much smaller than the house in Northridge, California, that he had, like, this estate. And it was like a one room, rice paper doors, very small accommodations. And I remember asking him why, you know, there weren't spare bedrooms and things like this. And he said, I want this to be a place where I can be alone. Everybody was always staying at his house. It was always filled with people. And this was a place where he had us, the children, occasionally a girlfriend or something, but could go and be himself and just remember how that felt, like it was really important that he was sharing that with me. There are so many moments, but those are a few.

[Interviewer]

Well, I hope a lot of people get ahold of this book. I was just honored to be able to speak with you, and I thank you for your time. Something we said is the title of the book, Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word and me, Elizabeth Storter Pryor.

[Host]

Thank you so much.

[Elizabeth Storter Pryor]

Thank you so much. It was a wonderful conversation and thank you for researching so much. That really helped the conversation, and I appreciate it.

[L]

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