nope, not one time in my whole life has someone called me that. (I'll piss off some folks by totally separating this from the colloquial usage by black people to other blacks, which means something like "dude" or "generic person", but oh well)
let me try and remember some of the ways I thought I was discriminated against because of my color:
the first thing I can remember is being a first grader sitting in the principal's office at Greenfield School while my mother (journalist), father (english professor), and grandfather (head of accounting for the School Board) explained to my teacher that I certainly was smart enough to have skipped kindergarten and she'd better stop assuming I was stupid if she wanted to keep her job. I remember thinking I wasn't the youngest person in my class, so I had no clue what the fuss was about. I went back to playing with my star wars men. my mom moved to another neighborhood the following year so I switched schools anyway.
when I was in 6th grade we moved into a deeluxe apartment... in the sky-high. it was in Chestnut Hill, one of Philly's 'rich people' neighborhoods. we were by no means rich, but my mom was making decent coin at her marketing job at that point so she could afford it easy. she told me in no uncertain terms that she was making the move for my sake, so I wouldn't grow up in a rough neighborhood. she would have much preferred living in North or West Philly somewhere (both considered rough) anyway, soon I was being blamed for all kinds of acts of vandalism I wasn't doing. tossing food in the pool, corny grafitti. it HAD to be me, you see... it was the only explanation. nevermind the white kids who'd been living in that building prior. it had to be me. mom immediately knew better because my greedy ass wasn't wasting ANY food at that age, and my grafitti book (when I wrote grafitti my name was 'royal' lol big suprise. arrow on the 'l', crown above the name) didn't look anything like the stuff that was being put on the walls of the building. again I sat in a room with her arguing with someone about me. eventually the manager was fired for something else and the new manager was black! HA! that manager became like a second mom to me for a hot sec. we lived in that building for 4 years.
when I was 16, me and my best friend had complete access to our mothers' cars. mom's was a honda accord, vee's mom's was a pontiac sunbird. the catch was we'd have to pick them up and drop them off places as needed. no biggie whatsoever, we were mobile! friday evenings we had to pick up his mom at the bank she managed in our neighborhood,which was still Chestnut Hill. we did it all the time. parked behind the bank, chilled, waited. usually playing some hip hop. this time was different. a cop car pulled up, the cops jumped out and started screaming at us, show our hands and the like. they frisked the hell out of us with guns TO OUR TEMPLES as we tried vainly to tell them what we were doing there. that is still one of the scariest experiences in my life because there was pure terror and hate in those cops' eyes. we both thought we were gonna die that night. finally vee's mom came out and the cops relented and left without a word. that's right, no "well ma'am we weren't sure" no "sorry boys" no nothing. silent exit. we fumed. vee's dad and my grandfather contacted our precinct, and a detective came out but it was clear he didn't even believe us from his demeanor. this, in retrospect is probably why both of us LOVED to drive around blasting "Fuck the Police" that year.
lets see... then there was the time the cops straight told me the car I was driving (my mom's car again) was stolen. didn't ask me where I'd gotten it... just told me it was stolen. they checked that VIN hard as hell with disbelief that it matched my paperwork, and looked from the address on my license to the address on the reg like 10 times.
the whole 'getting followed around every store I've ever entered' thing, of course. the older ladies gripping their purses and/or crossing the street, of course. all kinds of "soft" racism. I wonder if any of the above would rate as "real" racism on here.
more interesting is the "positive" stuff attributed to me simply because I'm black. I've been the only black around and got picked first for hoops (ok I AM awesome at basketball, but still) I've been assumed to be able to dance (ok my mike jack impression is pitch perfect, I can't front lol) It's been assumed I can box (well... I was trained by my golden gloves uncle)
hmmm... now I'm feeling like Token:
at any rate... I've never been called nigger to my face. that's a feather in my cap, right?
(Yas, I wasn't sure if this was a Barriers or Bridges post. your call.)