Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word

by Randall Kennedy

  40. Kenny Moore, “The 1968 Olympics: A Courageous Stand,” Sports Illustrated, August 5, 1991.

  41. Marc Appleman, “The Kid!,” Sports Illustrated for Kids, July 1, 1995.

  42. Gary Smith, “The Chosen,” Sports Illustrated, December 23, 1996.

  43. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984), 72.

  44. Branford Marsalis, interview, Playboy, December 1993.

  45. Lonnae O'Neal Parker, “White Girl?,” Washington Post, August 8, 1999.

  46. “White Girl—The Dialogue Continues,” Seattle Times, October 22, 1999.

  47. Henry Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (1991), 230–48.

  48. Forrest G. Wood, Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction (1970), pl. 4, foll. p. 84.

  49. Quoted in David Donald, Charles Sumner, pt. 2 (Da Capo Press ed., 1996), p. 49.

  50. Ibid., 84.

  51. David Halberstam, The Children (1998), 261.

  52. Lynch v. State, 236 A. 2d 45, 48 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1967).

  53. See, e.g., United States v. Pospisil, 186 F.3d 1023 (8th Cir. 1999); Clifton v. Mass. Bay Transp. Auth., 2000 Mass. Super. LEXIS 22; Guillory v. Godfrey, 134 Cal. App. 2d 628 (1955); United States v. Smith, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 16406 (4th Cir.); United States v. Hart-berger, 148 F.3d 777 (7th Cir. 1998); Ohio v. Fay e, 2000 Ohio App. LEXIS 1971; Norris v. City of Anderson, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22612; Black Voters v. McDonough, 421 F.Supp. 165 (D. Mass. 1976); Solomon v. Liberty County, Fla., 951 F.Supp. 1522 (E.D. Fla. 1997); United States v. Lansdowne Swim Club, 713 F.Supp. 785 (E.D. Pa. 1989); People v. MacKenzie, 34 Cal. App. 4th 1256 (1995); State v. Palermo, 765 So. 2d 1139 (2000); State v. Colella, 690 A. 2d 156 (N.J. Super. Ct. 1997); Mancha v. Field Museum of Natural History, 283 N.E.2d 899 (1972); City of Minneapolis v. State of Minnesota, 310 N.W.2d 485 (1981).

  54. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, 2:664–65; DuFlambeau v. Stop Treaty Abuse, 991 F.2d 1249 (7th Cir. 1993).

  55. Farai Chideya, The Color of Our Future (1999), 9.

  56. Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (1992),42.

  57. Monteiro v. Tempe Union High School District, 158 F.3d 1022 (9th Cir. 1998). Also see Random House Webster's College Dictionary (2000), 894: “Nigger is now probably the most offensive word in English.”

  58. Margaret M. Russell, “Representing Race: Beyond ‘Sellouts’ and ‘Race Cards’: Black Attorneys and the Straitjacket of Legal Practice,”Michigan Law Review 95 (1997): 765.

  59. Letter to the editor, “End Hatred and Its Code Words,” Des Moines Register, December 28, 1999.

  60. Ian Buruma, “Joys of Victimhood,” New York Review of Books, April 8, 1999.

  61. Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997).

  62. Larry Kramer, Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist (1989).

  63. Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987), v. Also see Stanley Crouch's review of Beloved in the New Republic, October 19, 1987.

  64. For useful commentary on this point, see Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (1999); Samantha Power, “To Suffer by Comparison? Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust,” Daedalus 128 (1999): 31.

  65. Quoted in Joseph Boskin, Rebellious Laughter (1997), 161–62.

  66. See, e.g., Goldberg v. City of Philadelphia, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8969 (D.C.E.D. Pa. 1994) (kike); Vigil v. City of Las Cruces, 119 F.3d 871 (10th Cir. 1997) (wetback); United States v. Piche, 981 F.2d 706 (4th Cir. 1992) (gook); Huckaby v.Moore, 142 F.3d 233 (5th Cir. 1998) (honky).

  67. See, e.g., Gant v.Wallingford Bd. of Educ, 69 F.3d 669 (2d Cir. 1995); United States v. Sowa, 34 F.3d 447 (7th Cir. 1994); United States v. Ramey 24 F.3d 602 (4th Cir. 1994); United States v. Juvenile Male J.H.H., 22 F.3d 821 (8th Cir. 1994); United States v. McInnis, 976 F.2d 1226 (9th Cir. 1992). See also chapter two, ahead, Nigger in Court.

  68. 80 U.S. 585 (1871). Also see Robert D. Goldstein, “Blyew: Variations on a Jurisdictional Theme,” Stanford Law Review 41 (1988): 469.

  69. 80 U.S. at 589.

  70. United States v. Montgomery, 23 F. 3d 1130 (7th Cir. 1994).

  71. Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (1977), 309.

  72. Ibid., 341.

  73. Ibid., 344.

  74. Ibid., 319.

  75. Howard Bingham and Max Wallace, Muhammed Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America (2000), 119.

  76. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington (1986), 293.

  77. Clarence Major, Dictionary of Afro-American Slang (1970), 84.

  78. Claude Brown,“The Language of Soul,” Esquire, April 1968.

  79. Jarvis DeBerry, “Keeping a Hateful Word Inside a Dictionary,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 23, 1998.

  80. For an excellent discussion about nigger, on which I have drawn, see Smitherman, Black Talk, 210–13.

  81. Helen Jackson Lee, Nigger in the Window (1978), 27.

  82. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 328.

  83. The Essential Lenny Bruce, ed. Joel Cohen (1967), 16.

  84. On Richard Pryor, see Richard Pryor with Mike Gold, Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences (1995); John A. Williams and Dennis A. Williams, If I Stop I'll Die: The Comedy and Tragedy of Richard Pryor (1991); Jim Haskins, Richard Pryor: A Man and His Madness (1984); Jeff Rovin, Richard Pryor: Black and Blue (1983).

  85. Mel Watkins, On the Real Side (1994), 550.

  86. In the early 1980s Richard Pryor announced that he would no longer use the word nigger. Explaining that a three-week stay in Africa (mainly Kenya) had had a profound effect on him, Pryor later wrote (in prose that initially makes one wonder whether he is being facetious) that “the land had been timeless, the people majestic. I had seen and felt things impossible to experience any place else on Earth. I left enlightened. I also left regretting ever having uttered the word nigger onstage or off it. It was a wretched word. Its connotations weren't funny, even when people laughed. To this day I wish I'd never said that word. I felt its lameness. It was misunderstood by people. They [didn't] get what I was talking about. Neither did I.” (Pryor with Gold, Pryor Convictions, 175. Luckily Pryor's racial enlightenment was delayed until after he had produced Bicentennial Nigger (1976) and other comedy albums reflecting his genius.

  87. In print, see Chris Rock, Rock This!, 17—19 (1997). In audio, listen to Chris Rock, Roll with the New (1997). To view the performance, see the video, Chris Rock, Bring the Pain (1996).

  88. Coolio, “Gangsta's Paradise,” Gangsta's Paradise (Tommy Boy, 1995).

  89. Ice-T, “Straight up Nigga,” OG: Original Gangster (Sire Records, 1991).

  90. Ice Cube, “The Nigga Ya Love to Hate,” in Amerikkka's Most Wanted (Priority Records, 1990).

  91. Beanie Sigel, “Ride 4 My,” The Truth (Island Def Jam Music Group, 2000).

  92. Listen to 2pac, 2pacalypse Now (Interscope, 1991).

  93. Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (1968), 9.

  94. Harlon Dalton, Racial Healing (1995), 169.

  95. Daryl Cumbers Dance, Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans (1978), 77.

  96. Ibid.

  97. Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan with Kim Greene, The Last Poets—On a Mission: Selected Poems and a History of the Last Poets (1996), 6—63.

  98. Ibid., 60.

  99. See Michael Thomas Ford,That's Mr.Faggot toYou: Further Trials from My Queer Life (1999); Michael Warner: The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life (1999); Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues (1998); Inga Muscio, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (1998); Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1998); Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto (1997); Dyke Life: From Growing Up to Growing Old, a Celebration of the Lesbian Experience (Karla Jay, ed. 1996); Jonathan Eig, “This
Woman Wants You to Call Her Bastard,” Offspring, June/July 2000 (describing Marley Greiner, founder of Bastard Nation); Kathleen Bishop, “Cracker Day Fun for All,” Flagler-Palm Coast Community Times, March 29, 2000.

  100. Bruce A. Jacobs, Race Manners: Navigating the Minefield Between Black and White Americans (1999), 102.

  101. See Robin D. G. Kelly, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (1994), 209–14.

  102. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Some Time in New York City (Apple Records, 1972)

  103. Patti Smith, Easter (Arista Records, 1978).

  104. Anthony DeCurtis, interview with Eminem, Rolling Stone, July 15, 2000.

  105. Quoted in Kelly, Race Rebels, 209–10.

  106. Michael Eric Dyson, “Nigger Gotta Stop,” The Source, June 1999.

  107. Quoted in Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973 (1998), 44.

  108. See Emily Bernard, ed., Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 (2001).

  109. See Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1940), 268. See also p. 161.

  110. Pertinent here is the following story, an anecdote saved from oblivion by the great sociologist Erving Goffman:

  I was once admitted to a group of Negro boys of about my own age with whom I used to fish. When I first began to join them, they would carefully use the word Negro in my presence. Gradually, as we went fishing more and more often, they began to joke with each other in front of me and to call each other “nigger.”… One day when we were swimming, a boy shoved me with mock violence and I said to him, “Don't give me that nigger talk.”

  He replied, “You bastard,” with a big grin.

  From that time on, we could all use the word nigger but the old categories had totally changed. Never, as long as I live, will I forget the way my stomach felt after I used the word nigger without any reservation.

  Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963), 29 (quoting Ray Birdwhistell).

  111. Susan Schmidt, “Senator Byrd Apologizes for Racial Remarks,” Washington Post, March 5, 2001.

  112. See John Hartigan: Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit (1999). Related is the increasing use of “wigger,” a reference to so-called white niggers—whites who immerse themselves in and express themselves through cultural styles, gestures, and tastes that are generally identified as “black.”

  113. Ibid., 116.

  114. Ibid.

  115. Arthur K. Spears, African-American Language Use: Ideology and So-Called Obscenity in African-American English: Structure, History and Use (eds. Salikoko S. Mufwene, Jahn S. Rickford, Guy Bailey, and John Baugh, 1998), 241.

  116. Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 (1918).

  2. Nigger in Court

  1. Stephen J. Whitfield, A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (1988), 37–38.

  2. See Hance v. Zant, 696 F.2d 940 (11th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1210 (1994); 114S.Ct. 1392 (1994) (denying application for stay of execution). See also Bob Herbert, “Mr. Hance's ‘Perfect Punishment,’ ” New York Times, March 27, 1994; idem, “Jury Room Injustice,” New York Times, March 30, 1994.

  3. See Randall Kennedy, Race, Crime, and the Law (1997), 277–84.

  4. In the middle of William Andrews's trial for murder, for example, a juror handed the bailiff a napkin on which was drawn a man on a gallows above the inscription “Hang the Niggers.” Whether a juror did the drawing and whether other jurors saw it are questions that remain unanswered, since courts declined even to order a hearing into the matter. Andrews was sentenced to death by firing squad; see Andrews v. Shulsen, 485 U.S. 919 (1988). See also Callins v. Collins, 998 F.2d 269, 277 (5th Cir. 1993) (issue involving a potential juror's reference to the defendant as a nigger).

  5. Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynki, “The Effect of an Over heard Ethnic Slur on Evaluations of the Target: How to Spread a Social Disease,”Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 61 (1985), 21.

  6. United States v. H. Rap Brown, 539 F.2d 467, 468 (5th Cir. 1976).

  7. Ibid., 469–70.

  8. See In re Stanley Z. Goodfarb, 880 P. 2d 620 (1994).

  9. See In re Ferrara, 582 N.W. 2d 817 (1998).

  10. See “Disciplinary Proceeding in Relation to J. Kevin Mulroy,” New York Law Journal, August 23, 1999, 8.

  11. Ibid.

  12. See Kennedy, Race, Crime, and the Law, 256-62.

  13. Collins v. State, 100 Miss. 435, 440 (1911). The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial, declaring, “The appellant may be a bad Negro… yet he is entitled to go before the jury of the land untrammeled by voluntary epithets” (ibid.).

  The term white man's nigger was once common among blacks. Now it is seldom heard. The defense counsel in Collins offered a useful elucidation of the phrase:

  It has two meanings, one which endears the possessor of the name to the average white man who looks upon this class as willing and obedient servants, ready to execute any commission a white man may set, whether lawful or not, and to the better white men, it often carries with it an idea that a white man's nigger is loyal, peaceful and faithful to the last degree to white ideals and white control. The average white jury would take it for granted that the killing of a white man's nigger is a more serious crime than the killing of a plain, everyday black man.

  Ibid., at 435, 436–37.

  14. John Egerton, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (1994), 369.

  15. Taylor v. State, 50Texas Criminal Reports 560, 561 (1907).

  16. James v. State, 92 So. 909, 910 (Ala. Ct. App. 1922).

  17. Thornton v. State, 451 S.W. 2d 898, 902 (Tex. Crim. App. 1970).

  18. In re Jerry L. Spivey, District Attorney, 480 S.E. 2d 693 (1997).

  19. This account of the incident is consistent with the account offered by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. See In re Spivey, at 695. Further details are provided in the transcript of the hearing presided over by the trial judge whose decision to remove District Attorney Spivey was reviewed by the Supreme Court. See In re Spivey, transcript volume 1, 32–34. Mr. Roger W. Smith, who represented Mr. Spivey, generously gave me a copy of the transcript, which is now available at the Harvard Law School Library. Mr. Asa L. Bell, who represented parties seeking the ouster of Mr. Spivey, also shared with me instructive material.

  20. In re Spivey, transcript volume 2, 159–60.

  21. Ibid., 161.

  22. Ibid., 197.

  23. 315 U.S. 568, 571–72 (1942).

  24. In re Spivey at 699.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Wendy B. Reilly, “Fighting the Fighting Words Standard: A Call for Its Destruction,” Rutgers Law Review 52 (2000): 947, 956. See also Kent Greenawalt, Fighting Words: Individuals, Communities, and Liberties of Speech (1995), 47–64.

  27. Cf. Kathleen M. Sullivan, “The First Amendment Wars,” New Republic, September 28, 1992, 40, in which the author complains that the fighting-words doctrine gives “more license to insult

  Mother Teresa than Sean Penn just because she is not likely to throw a punch.”

  28. United States v. Alexander, 471 F.2d 923, 941 n.48 (D.C. Cir. 1973).

  29. In re Spivey, at 699.

  30. See Howard Kurtz, “The Shot Heard Round the Media: Bush's Off-Mike Crack Could Cut Both Ways,” Washington Post, September 6, 2000; Rob Hiaasen, “The Truth? Adults Use Bad Words,” Baltimore Sun, September 6, 2000.

  31. See, e.g., John A. Goldsmith, Colleagues: Richard B. Russell and His Apprentice, Lyndon B.Johnson (1998).

  32. Cf. Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1986).

  33. In Richard Wright, Eight Men (1961).

  34. Fisher v. United States, 328 U.S. 463 (1946). For a useful and detailed description of this case, see David M. Siegel, “Felix Frank furter, Charles Hamilton Houston and the ‘N-word’: A Case Study in the Evolution of Judicial Attitudes towards Race,” Southern C
alifornia Interdisciplinary Law Journal 7 (1998): 317.

  35. Quoted in Siegel, “Felix Frankfurter, Charles Hamilton Houston and the N-word,” 360.

  36. Quoted ibid., 361.

  37. See United States v. Alexander, 471 F. 2d 923 (D.C. Cir. 1972).

  38. A similar strategy would later fail another black man, who would be convicted of attempted murder in 1990 after seriously injuring a coworker who had repeatedly called him “nigger.” See Ohio v. Hall, 1992 Ohio App. LEXIS 3915.