When They Call You Nigger
/(A version of this post first appeared on the citizen.education website.)
Corinne Magoveny Terrone, calling a Black man nigger in front of small children.
Despite the fact that they’ve benefitted from white supremacy and systemic racism for the past 400 years, navigating through life with the assistance of privilege and power, white people are STILL MAD about Black people who dare to walk around freely existing as human beings in this country. Still. STILL. How do we know they’re mad? They demonstrate it daily when they choose to take on the behavior of their forefathers and call Black people niggers. Our latest example (of MANY) hails from the northeastern state of Connecticut, where they vote blue but think red. (You didn’t think racism stopped above the Mason-Dixon line…did you?)
Corinne Magoveny Terrone, a former employee of Hamden Public Schools, was caught on camera unleashing a racist tirade at a Black man and Black woman in an East Haven, CT grocery store the evening of Friday March 15th. According to the 911 call she placed (you already KNEW that was coming…even though SHE was the attacker…), Magoveny Terrone stated: “The man in his little, um, scooter said, ‘Are you talking to me bitch?’ And I said, ‘No nigger, I’m not’ because he called me a bitch, I called him a nigger, then he continued to get up and threaten me, so there was spitting going back and forth. He spit on the back of me and I am pressing charges.”
However various videos of the incident, which pick up in the middle of the altercation, tell a much clearer story. The videos start with Magoveny Terrone being plainly heard over all other noise calling the man “motherfucker,” and shouting about he and his companion being “…niggers that’s why, they’re fucking niggers in East Haven…” Here, the man starts walking toward the supermarket supremacist, amid the other customers chants of “noooo, don’t do it…” imploring him to stand down. As his female companion attempts to hold him back from approaching the racist, Cocky Corinne begins taunting the man by saying “…put your hands on me, come on, put them on me…” and then engages in the highly disrespectful act of spitting at the man. It is unclear if the “back and forth” she referenced in her 911 call actually occurred, but from the video it seems she was the first and only spitter.
The internet wasted no time in finding out Magoveny Terrone’s identity and place of employment, and by Saturday morning, she had “resigned” from her post, amid the investigation. It was also reported that the Department of Children and Families had to be called, since her two small children were witness to the incident. The DCF released a statement, saying “The Department does investigate reports that a parent or other person responsible for a child’s care is acting erratically or in an impaired fashion that puts a child’s safety at risk or is injurious to their well-being.”
So…let’s unpack this.
On a Friday night, while doing something as innocuous as grocery shopping, a white woman got agitated/irritated/disgusted enough with the presence of Black people in her town and grocery store to call them what is universally accepted as literally the worst thing a white person can call a Black person. This act of aggression was performed publicly, numerous times, in front of her (and other people’s) children, while she was well aware she was being recorded, and after numerous people tried to diffuse and deescalate the situation. At this point, any and every notion of her “getting caught up in the moment” or “not being able to control herself” should be abandoned. Why? Because she meant that shit.
White people know EXACTLY what they’re doing when they call a Black person nigger. They not only know the history and power of the word, they know the vitriol and venom it contains. They say it when they mean “I’m better than you.” It’s their favorite synonym for “You are less than human.” They whip it out whenever they want to remind Black people “We once OWNED you, RAPED you, and KILLED you AT WILL with NO REPERCUSSIONS!” When white people say nigger, it’s saying “Black thing, you don’t belong.” It is an attack on a Black person’s humanity, and not in a hyperbolic way. When white people call Black people nigger, it is their clarion call for Making America Great Again; That time where, less than 60 years ago, you could hang a Black body up in a tree just because you wanted to. For kicks, you could cut off their genitalia or cut out the baby growing inside them. You could take a picture of all this, and send it across the nation to your white relatives as a keepsake or as a postcard, inviting them to join you the next time. It was common practice. It was accepted. It was supported by law enforcement. It was encouraged and championed. And when a white person hurls the word nigger at a Black person in the year of our Lord 2019, it is demonstrative of their innate desire to go back to the days where Black people were disposable commodities and white people were the only “people”. When they call you nigger, they mean to strip you of your worth. Thankfully with video evidence, numerous witnesses, and the self-snitching she employed, the only thing getting stripped in Connecticut is Corinne Magoveny Terrone’s job and earning potential.