Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, "Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word and Me" (37 Ink, 2026)

About this episode

Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor discusses her relationship with the N-word and her father Richard Pryor in the context of race and comedy in America.

The N-word is one of the most perplexing, controversial and misunderstood words in the American lexicon. It’s a word that Elizabeth Pryor has not only contemplated, it’s one that she has taught and observed up close.When a white student quoted her father and blurted out the N-word in the middle of a class she was teaching, Professor Pryor’s worlds collided. In that moment, she was forced to confront the history of the notorious slur in the United States, and her complicated relationship with her father Richard Pryor, who made the word a trademark of his comedy in the 1970s.As she dives into her research, her own memories of the N-word come flooding back in unprocessed memories that she hadn’t thought about for decades. In reckoning with those memories, Elizabeth goes on a more public journey of discovery of the messy and sometimes surprising legacies of racism in the United States.A braided narrative that seamlessly integrates the history of the N-word with Elizabeth’s own story of growing up the Black Jewish daughter of Richard Pryor, Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word and Me (37 Ink, 2026) follows Elizabeth as she becomes a leading scholar and teacher of the…

People in this episode

Guest: Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

Topics covered

• N-word
• racism
• comedy
• family legacy
• African American studies
• cultural history

Keywords

• N-word
• Richard Pryor
• racism
• comedy
• African American studies
• cultural legacy
• Elizabeth Pryor

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: 37 Ink

Books & works: Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word and Me, Richard Pryor: Live in Concern

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