Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor has studied, taught, and felt the complex power of perhaps the most controversial words in the American lexicon: the N-word. She also confronted this word through a complicated relationship with her father, the iconic comedian Richard Pryor, who helped popularize this word. Professor Pryor’s relationship to the N-word was forced to the front of her mind when one of her white students quoted Pryor’s father and blurted out the N-word in the middle of class. This moment led to her new book Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me. Professor Pryor braids memories of growing up as the Black Jewish daughter of Richard Pryor with an exploration of the historical and contemporary use of the N-word. The book unpacks Professor Pryor’s journey to becoming a leading scholar and teacher of the very word her father put on the pop culture map, and in the process creates an inventive look at race and language in America.
Shereen Marisol Meraji is a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, where she also serves as the head of audio. She is a founder of NPR’s award-winning podcast Code Switch, which Apple Podcasts named its first-ever “Show of the Year.”