Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word (18 page)

1.
See, e.g.,
Ohio v. Howard
,
1995
Ohio App. LEXIS
750
(Ohio Ct. App.) (man killed in altercation sparked by his calling the defendant a nigger);
State v. Higginbotham
,
212
N.W.
2
d
881
(Minn. Sup. Ct.
1973
) (man killed after calling a woman a nigger lover); “Black Judge Adds
35
Years to Robber's Sentence after Felon Made Racial Slur,”
Jet
, October
10, 1994
; “School Superintendent in Nevada under Fire for Using Word
Nigger,” Jet
, August
28, 2000
; “White Bishop Steps Down from Charity amid Controversy over Racial Slur,”
Jet
, April
21, 1997
; “Jaguar Official Suspended after Using Racial Slur,”
Jet
, June
13, 1994
.

2.
On the etymology of
nigger
, see the
Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang
, ed. J. E. Lighter (
1997
),
2:657
. See also the
Oxford English Dictionary
, eds. J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner (
2
d ed.,
1989
),
10:402
—
4
; Geneva Smitherman,
Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the 'Hood to the Amen Corner
(rev. ed.,
2000
),
210
—
13
; H. L. Mencken,
The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development
of English in the United States
, abridged with annotations and new material by Raven I. McDavid Jr., with the assistance of David W. Maurer (
1979
),
383
—
84
; Hugh Rawson,
Wicked Words
(
1989
),
268
—
70
.

3.
See Rawson,
Wicked Words
, 268—
70
; Smitherman,
Black Talk
,
210
—
13
.

4.
The linguist Robin Tolmach Lakoff speculates that
nigger
became a slur when users of the term became aware that it was a mispronunciation of
Negro
and decided to continue using the mispronunciation to signal contempt—in much the same way that certain individuals choose to insult others by deliberately mispronouncing their names. Robin Tolmach Lakoff, “The N-Word: Still There, Still Ugly,”
Newsday
, September 28,
1995
. But see the
Random House Historical Dictionary of Slang
,
2:656
, where this theory of mispronunciation is discounted.

5.
Hosea Easton,
A Treatise on the Intellectual Character and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the United States; and the Prejudice Exercised Towards Them
(
1837
),
40
-
41
.

6.
See Sam Dennison,
Scandalize My Name: Black Imagery in American Popular Music
(
1982
).

7.
Rawson,
Wicked Words
,
268
.

8.
Kenneth Porter, “Racism in Children's Rhymes and Sayings, Central Kansas,
1910
—
1918
,”
Western Folklore
24
(
1965
):
191
.

9.
The NAACP has registered Internet addresses that contain the word
nigger
in order to preempt their use by racists. Even so, there remains plenty of opportunity for mischief. An Internet search performed in July
2001
using
nigger
as the key word pulled up
241
Web sites. See Julie Salomon, “The Web as Home for Racism and Hate,”
New York Times
, October
23, 2000
; Michael Mechanic, “Prempting Cyberhate,”
Mother Jones
, September
1999
; Mark Lei-bovich, “A New Domain for Hate Speech: Civil Rights Groups Struggle to Buy Racist Web Addresses,”
Washington Post
, December
15, 1999
.

10.
Quoted in Stephen Kantrowitz,
Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy
(
2000
),
2000
,
259
.

11.
Q
UOTED IBID., 297
.

12.
Sandra Kathryn White, ed.,
In Search of Democracy: The NAACP Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins, 1920–1977
(
1999
),
43
.

13.
John Egerton,
Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South
(
1994
),
117
.

14.
T. Harry Williams,
Huey Long
(
1978
),
705
—
6
.

15.
William Anderson,
The Wild Man from Sugar Creek: The Political Career of Eugene Talmadge
(
1975
),
207
. Talmadge is also reported to have said, “No niggah's good as a white man because the niggah's only a few shawt yea-ahs from cannibalism” (quoted in Rawson,
Wicked Words
,
269
).

16.
Neil R. McMillen,
Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow
(
1989
),
205
.

17.
Ibid,
204
.

18.
Quoted in Len Holt,
The Summer That Didn't End: The Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Project of 1964
(
1965
; Da Capo Press ed.,
1992
),
311
.

19.
William O. Douglas,
The CourtY ears 1939–1975
:
The Autobiography of William O. Douglas
(
1980
),
15

20.
See David G. McCollough,
Truman
(
1992
),
576
.

21.
Robert A. Caro,
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Means of Ascent
(
1990
),
70
.

22.
See, e.g., Anthony Summers with Robbyn Swan,
The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon
(
2000
),
354
; Seymour Hersh,
The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House
(1983), 11
110—
11
; Hilton Als, “This Lonesome Place: Flannery O'Connor on Race and Religion in the Unreconstructed South,”
The New Yorker
, Jan.
29, 2001
; Ralph C. Wood, “Flannery O'Connor's Racial Morals and Manners,”
The Christian Century
, Nov.
16, 1994
.

23.
Harriet Jacobs,
Incidents in the Lfe of a Slave Girl
, eds. Nellie Y. McKay and Frances Smith Foster (Norton critical ed.
2001
),
34
.

24.
Frederick Douglass,
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself
, eds. William Andrews and William S. McFeeley (Norton critical ed.
1997
),
29
.

25.
Richard Wright,
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow in Uncle Tom's Children
(
1940
; Harper Perennial ed.,
1993
),
4
—
5

26.
Ibid.,
8
.

27.
Ibid.,
12
—
13
.

28.
Kathryn Talalay,
Composition in Black and White: The Life of Philippa Schuyler
(1995),
67
—
68
.

29.
Quoted in Susan Spotts, “Benjamin Jefferson Davis” (unpublished paper on file at Harvard Law School),
15
. Also see Charles H. Martin,
The Angelo Herndon Case and Southern Justice
(
1976
),
48
; Benjamin J. Davis Jr.,
In Dfense of Negro Rights
(
1950
).

30.
Lerone Bennett Jr., “Chronicles of Black Courage: The Little Rock Ten,”
Ebony
, December
1997
.

31.
Ely Green,
Ely: An Autobiography
(
1966
),
13
—
17
,
24
. See also Leon Litwack,
Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow
(
1998
),
20
.

32.
Martin B. Duberman,
Paul Robeson
(
1988
),
55
.

33.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (
1965
)
,
30
-
37
.

34.
Arnold Ramper sad,
Jackie Robinson: A Biography
(
1997
),
142
.

35.
Ibid.,
172
.

36.
Carl T. Rowan,
South of Freedom
(
1954
),
125

37.
Dick Gregory with Robert Lipsyte,
nigger
(
1964
),
185
—
86
. See also idem with James R. McGraw,
Up from Nigger
(
1976
).

38.
H
OLT, 258
.

39.
William Plummer and Toby Kahn, “Street Talk,”
People
, May
13
,
1996
.

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.
2
d
45
,
48
(Md. Ct. Spec. App.
1967
).

53.
See, e.g.,
United States v. Pospisil
,
186
F.
3
d
1023
(
8
th Cir.
1999
);
Clifton v. Mass. Bay Transp. Auth.
,
2000
Mass. Super. LEXIS
22
;
Guillory v. Godfrey
,
134
Cal. App.
2
d
628
(
1955
);
United States v. Smith
,
1998
U.S. App. LEXIS
16406
(
4
th Cir.);
United States v. Hart-berger
,
148
F.
3
d
777
(
7
th 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.
4
th
1256
(
1995
);
State v. Palermo
,
765
So.
2
d
1139
(
2000
);
State v. Colella
,
690
A.
2
d
156
(N.J. Super. Ct.
1997
);
Mancha v. Field Museum of Natural History
,
283
N.E.
2
d
899
(
1972
);
City of Minneapolis v. State of Minnesota
,
310
N.W.
2
d
485
(
1981
).