POETRY REPRINT

In the span of three minutes, one can learn a word… any word, in any language … including its definition, and its etymology.

And if someone is one of the brighter bulbs in the universal chandelier, he and/or she can and will immediately incorporate said word into their vocabulary.

Admittedly, I have no right to function as if I am the authority on how best to utilize one's time, especially given that time is a precious commodity.

Yet… dating back as far as calendar year 1583… the N-word applied to those with limited, if any, upward mobility and whose Indentured Servitude was for as many as seven years for up to three non-paying parties.

And to emphasize this point clearly, note that the Indentured included Benjamin Franklin, the supposed discoverer of electricity, along with two other Founding Fathers — George Taylor and Matthew Thornton — and Charles Thomson, the Continental Congress's first and only Secretary.

Author's note: Common in the 17th and 18th centuries across the American colonies and used by Europeans and Africans alike, indentured servitude was a labor system in which individuals agreed to work without pay for 4 to 7 years in exchange for passage, food, and shelter. It was claimed to be temporary and to provide a route to freedom and landownership.

Similar to slavery, it involved economically valuable, skilled labor that benefited plantation owners like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. It was also harshly exploitative, abusive, deadly, and legal.

While under contract, indentured servants worked and lived alongside enslaved Africans, could not marry, and were severely overworked, yet they were protected to the extent that they had to be provided with adequate food and shelter by law.

Unlike slavery, indentured servitude was voluntary, and upon finishing their service, indentured servants received 'freedom dues' such as corn, clothes, tools, and sometimes land. Additionally, the children of indentured servants, or those formerly indentured, were born free.

This matters because the N-word slur was used to dehumanize people based on social or legal status, and a significant percentage of indentured servants — up to 69% — were Irish. Due to colonial interactions, shared work environments, and subsequent mixing (that is, interracial coupling), the forced system of chattel slavery and voluntary immigration caused the decline of indentured servitude.

In short, because DNA evidence indicates that nearly 40% of the current Black American population has Irish ancestry, the N-word is significantly more inclusive than assumed, and nixing DEI initiatives has the potential to detrimentally impact far more than intended…