Richard Pryor’s daughter Elizabeth is a scholar of the N-word

Elizabeth Storter Pryor, daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor, reveals in her new memoir how she spent years concealing her identity while becoming a leading scholar of the N-word—a word her father famously weaponized in his stand-up. For decades, she taught the history and impact of the slur without disclosing her father’s role in its cultural transformation, fearing the weight of legacy and the intimacy of his complicated life. The turning point came in her classroom when a student used the N-word unexpectedly, freezing her in place and forcing her to confront the real-world consequences of teaching about racism without having lived it. That moment sparked a journey to reconcile her father’s legacy—his groundbreaking use of the word as protest, his later renunciation of it after a transformative trip to Africa, and the deep personal cost of his fame. As a biracial woman raised by a white mother, Pryor grapples with the word’s power, its pain, and its paradox: a tool of resistance that still wounds. Her story is not just about a word, but about identity, inheritance, and the emotional toll of being both a scholar and a child of a cultural icon.