“Mommy what does ‘nigger’ mean?”
Gloria Naylor
Before you read the essay:
1. “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt
me.”
Do you remember hearing this saying when you were growing up? Do
you agree with it? Why or why not? Write your response in a few
sentences.
2. Vocabulary. Match the following words to their definitions:
innocuous
agreement
consensus
harmless
nymphomaniac
humiliation
necrophiliac
noise
clamor
powerless
degradation
someone who gets pleasure from
having sex with dead people
impotent
someone who is excessively
obsessed with sex
Answer these questions after you read the essay.
3. Why does Naylor think that the spoken word is more powerful than
the written word? Underline the two sentences where she discusses
this in paragraph one. Then put these sentences in your own words.
4. a) When she was in the third-grade, what does she do that causes
the boy to call her “nigger”?
b) Why do you think he responded that way?
6. In point form, summarize the different ways the word “nigger” was
used in Naylor’s community:
a) in the singular
b) used with a possessive adjective by a woman
c) in the plural
7. How was the word used differently for different genders?