Gloria Naylor is an African American from Queens. In the essay “The Meanings of a Word” she discusses how a word can be interpreted in many different ways. “Word themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them the true power.” To each individual a word can have different meanings depending on qualities such as race and gender. Positive or negative connation can come from how the word is being not only spoken, but from who it comes from.
Naylor wants to educate people by sharing the first time she remembers hearing the word ‘nigger’. She wants others to understand how she was affected throughout this personal experience. It was in her third grade class when math tests were being passed down the rows as she handed the paper back