Growing Up Pryor

Smith College history professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor refers to her latest book, Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me, as “the story of how a single volatile word impacted my life, my research, my teaching, and connected me to my famous father, unlocking the love I had buried for years.” 

Part memoir, part historical exploration, the book provides a deeply personal look into her complex relationship with her legendary father and, in particular, his use of the N-word as part of his comedy to mock white racism and assert Black identity. Since its release, the book has received national attention as a summer reading recommendation from The New York Times, and Pryor has appeared on programs including NPR’s Fresh Air. 

Though her father helped popularize the N-word in the 1970s, he eventually stopped using it in his act after he returned from a trip to Kenya, declaring the word “wretched” and regretting ever including it in his performances. He confessed that he felt he had lost control of the word’s meaning and that he thought people often misunderstood what he was trying to communicate by using the word in his comedy. 

Pryor’s own scholarship has been heavily influenced by both the historical and contemporary uses of the N-word, and through her classes, research, and writing she has tried to unpack its power. Her 2016 essay, “The Etymology of [the N-word]: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North,” published in the Journal of the Early Republic, won the Ralph D. Gray Prize for the best article of the year. And her 2020 TED Talk, “Why Is It Hard to Talk About the N-word,” has garnered more than 2 million views.

For Pryor, an incident in the classroom years ago proved to be, at least partially, the inspiration for her study of the history of the N-word, as well for what ultimately became Something We Said.

Specifically, in 2010, a white student quoted a line from Mel Brooks’ 1974 film, Blazing Saddles, co-written by her father, that included the N-word. (Pryor says the student was not using the word as a slur.) The incident sent Pryor on what she calls a three-pronged journey: into the history of the word itself, into her own complicated relationship with it as a biracial woman, and into a reckoning with her complicated father.

Critics, including Kirkus Reviews, have applauded how the book’s innovative format blends celebrity biography, personal memoir, and deep historical critique. 

Though she’s grateful for the attention the book is receiving, Pryor admits that writing Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me wasn’t easy. “It was incredibly challenging to integrate my scholarship with my personal life and my teaching,” she says. “Stories came alive that I hadn’t really thought about for a long time, many of which involve the intimacy of racism and the complicated way it impacts family and public relationships. I feel like there’ll be a lot of interesting conversations to come out of the book.”