Jemmifer Hickerson

Journal Entry Edited

“Danny told me that the people who enabled him up in D Street were white

niggers.”

“I didn’t hear the term white nigger again until I passed through City Point and

found out that I was one myself.”

In these quotes Patrick became familiar with the term “white nigger”. He was

confused and did not understand what it could mean he thought that “nigger” was just a

bad name they called black people but apparently he was wrong. Coming across this term

I was bit confused as well. The term “white nigger” was used from the higher social class

when referring to lower social class white people. The lower class people they were

referring to were often times on welfare and living in the projects with out a occupation

and just struggling due to being lazy. But on the other hand the term could mean poor

white people that are living like poor black people. Whether they were black or white did

not matter to the higher class because either way they were both struggling due to the

same issues. The term “nigger” in this book is strange because in another place within the

book Patrick mentioned how some blacks that were cool and others were “niggers”. This

opinion leads me to think maybe it means that a “nigger” is a person that puts up a threat

to others because the “black niggers” was the black person that had beef with the whites

and they couldn’t cross the “line or enter their project”. This thought process makes each
race look ignorant but then again they were all a bunch of people that had nothing better

to do but have project wars. As far as the higher class labeling others ass “niggers” it

doesn’t make them look any better.