Should I Break Up With My White BF Over Saying the N-Word?
For context: I am a female who is half black and Pakistani . My boyfriend is a 19 year old male who is white. We’ve been together for only 3 months. We are in a long distance relationship. I live in the city and he lives upstate.
In the beginning of our relationship I felt like I had to educate him on some of the jokes he would make. I told him what’s actually funny and borderline racism. He’s apologized for them and since then hasn’t made any weird jokes or remarks since then.
On top of educating him on the weirdness of his jokes, I’ve also had to educate him on why he shouldn’t say the N-word. Prior to dating me he said that he would use it when playing video games, and that his friends (black, white, and mexican) all say it together. I’m not at all defending him, I guess he was trying to convey that the N-word where he lives is so normalized, he didn’t see how it was offensive when black people closest to him normalized it so much for everyone to say. They didn’t get angry when non black people said it, if anything they encouraged it because they didn’t find offense to it. In that town the N-word is still viewed as a friend. I feel like because it was so normalized to him, I didn’t feel weirded out or angered to educate him on something most people would understand to not say.
I told him how I saw the word, how it has affected me (I would be called the N-word with the hard r from my Pakistani side of the family), and why he has no right to say it. When telling him this, he didn’t try to defend himself from saying the word, he listened and apologized. He promised me that he would never use the word after our conversation.
He’s also promised to me that he’ll never become like his father.
Additional Context: his dad is a white maga loving man who is really racist. My bf hates his dad and is always telling me how he’d rather kill himself than to be miserable and uneducated like him.
Now for the part where he breaks the promise and randomly said it last week Tuesday. We were on call as we do almost every night. Honestly I’m not too sure on what the context was. This was a side conversation between him and his sister that happened on the call. I was doing my nails so in all honesty I wasn’t paying attention to their conversation. I guess he was getting something to eat from his kitchen and all I hear is “Hold up bitch, (something else between that I don’t remember) Nigga hold on!”. I heard that and my heart sank. Immediately when he said it he went to his room to apologize to me but that made no difference. I told him I wanted to break up and that there was no reason for him to call his sister that. It was a personal choice that he chose and I was angered at how stupid and ignorant he was for saying it.
I was yelling, cursing and everything. I will admit I wasn’t the nicest but I do think it’s very justified. He never tried to defend himself against what he did but in a way he kept on saying that it was an honest mistake and that he doesn’t use the word at all. He was begging me to go through his messages to prove that he doesn’t say the N-word anymore. From my perspective I honestly couldn’t care less that he doesn’t say it anymore because that shouldn’t have been a problem. But then I compare our upbringings and feel conflicted about how I’m going about this.
I grew up in city where it was really normalized for non black people to say the N-word. Yet I have non black friends from there who don’t say it because they are educated from us (black friends), social media and sometimes their parents. He grew up upstate. There wasn’t a lot of diversity in his town compared to what I’m used to I’m the city, his dad is a racist bigot, and black people in his life enabled him to say the n word. I look back and I understand that he’s not a baby and even if they enabled it, it’s still a choice to say it. I’m more so conflicted on if I should give him another chance after I’ve seen growth from him being educated on the word.
I’m still hurt about him saying the N-word and honestly breaking up with him seems the most appropriate thing to do. However, prior to him saying the N-word, I do think he’s changing not just for me but for himself. He’s educated himself on black history, Pakistani history, and has shown interest to both of my cultures in a way that’s endearing. I understand that it was never my job to educate or change him regarding his views on the N-word or the weird racial jokes. However, I do feel as if he’s grown from saying those things after listening to me. It’s only been 3 months but I do trust that he’s putting in effort to educate himself more since this isn’t an ongoing problem in our relationship.
So do I look over him saying the n word once after I told him how it’s affected me? Or do I just end things to save myself from this situation again?