Op-Ed: In America, Calling A Black Child The N-Word Could Make You A Millionaire

In America, calling a Black autistic child a n****r on the playground can potentially make you a millionaire.

I know we are collectively supposed to use “the N-word” now, but if Shiloh Hendrix is bold enough to not only hurl that slur at a 5-year-old but defend her use of it while seeking to cash out on racism, the rest of us shouldn’t bother with pretense or politeness either.

The 30-year-old Minnesota woman has netted national headlines for her use of racial epithets, and while she is not the first racist to be caught on camera, her defiance both at the time of the incident and in the days following is noticeably different than similar episodes in recent years.

When confronted in the viral clip capturing the incident, Hendrix did not flinch, claiming in defense of her actions, “If he acts like one, then he’s going to be called one.”

This stance only helped Hendrix rise in notoriety, leading her to amass more than $700,000 in donations and counting after launching a fundraiser to move her and her family amid alleged fears for their safety.

“I have two small children who do not deserve this,” Hendrix writes on her fundraising page. “We have been threatened to the extreme by people online. Anything will help! We cannot, and will not live in fear!”

Her victimhood sounds mighty white, as does her inability to note the irony in arguing over the sort of treatment her two small children don’t deserve after calling someone else’s small child a n****r.

What most irritates me, though, is her writing, “It’s such a strange feeling to be living in a blissful dream and a nightmare simultaneously,” in a separate note thanking all the racists that have given her money.

She debased a Black child in the most primitive of ways and categorizes it as “living in a blissful dream.”

She is 30, talking like she regularly attends Klan rallies and improving her lifestyle as a result of it.

It’s a damning testament to where we are in 2025.

Hendrix wants to raise $1,000,000, and I fear that she will meet her goal if not exceed it, and in the process, provide a new template for the average bigot to make money off of casual and unrepetant displays of racism.

It’s evident that good old-fashioned American racism has the most bragging rights to Hendrix’s achievement, but the conservative media ecosystem deserves a lot of credit for this, too.

Those platforms and the personalities that fill those spaces have spent decades worsening race relations in America by demonizing nonwhite people, and whenever possible, turning people who harm Black folks in particular into sympathetic figures.

Much of this started in defense of law enforcement officials, real and imagined.

George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Florida, area neighborhood watch coordinator who killed Trayvon Martin in 2012, raised more than $200,000 in crowdfunding.

Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot Mike Brown in 2014, received more than $225,000.

Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who shot George Floyd in 2020, earned more than $200,000.

In the years that followed Black Lives Matter, the political movement sparked by these killings of unarmed Black men and women, these campaigns have only become more lucrative and inclusive for those who harm us.

See Daniel Penny, who raised more than $2.9 million in defense funds after being charged in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.

What Shiloh Hendrix’s controversy suggests is that now you might not even have to kill one of us to make a living, just resort to other displays of vintage racism.

Indeed, the same folks who uplifted the aforementioned in their times of crisis are now lavishing her with favorable coverage in right-wing media.

Like them, she now gets to play both victim and victimizer, villain and sympathetic figure.

It should not be lost on anyone that the platform on which she is raising these enormous funds purports to be an American Christian crowdfunding website launched as an alternative to GoFundMe, where I guess the heathens primarily give.

White Christians being full of it is not a novel concept, but even so, typically, don’t white evangelicals at least pretend that when it comes to the use of racial slurs, that is not something Jesus would do?

White Christian nationalism has always been more Ayn Rand and burning crosses than the virtues of the New Testament, but in the Trump era, it should be made more difficult for them to pretend to be of piety.

As for the calls to out the racists that have financially supported Shiloh Hendrix in anonymity, much as I’d like for those people to stand in their racism the way she has, we can’t do that, nor take down the platforms.

The First Amendment is what it is, thankfully, but that doesn’t mean traditional media could not do a better job of highlighting the racism of the right and how it has manifested culturally. Nor should it stop the Democratic Party, the alleged opposition party, from tackling it head-on. While they debate “the abundance agenda,” the fact is white folks in America have traditionally proven to choose race over their well-being time and time again.

If you can’t deal with that, you’re destined to lose.

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe for the boy attacked by Hendrix was launched by the Rochester branch of the NAACP. 

“Let us be clear: this was not simply offensive behavior—it was an intentional racist, threatening, hateful and verbal attack against a child, and it must be treated as such,” the NAACP says in its fundraiser.

Set with an initial goal of $250,000, after two days it raised just over $341,000. The family asked for donations to stop after that, and the NAACP chapter said, “love wins.”

I’m glad that the family was blessed, but I’m not so sure about that declaration.

Shiloh Hendrix might be “Donkey of the Day” on shows like The Breakfast Club, but elsewhere, she has been branded as a kind of hero on the verge of becoming a millionaire for the ugliest reason.

Love is not winning if viral hate is that lucrative in this climate.

Michael Arceneaux is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book, “I Finally Bought Some Jordans,” was published last March.

SEE ALSO:

Double Standard: Karmelo Anthony Can’t Claim Self-Defense But Kyle Rittenhouse Can?

Op-Ed: Jasmine Crockett Can’t Have It Both Ways

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