Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word (19 page)

54.
Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang
,
2
:
664–65
;
DuFlambeau v. Stop Treaty Abuse
,
991
F.
2
d
1249
(
7
th 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.
3
d
1022
(
9
th 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.
3
d
871
(
10
th Cir.
1997
) (wetback);
United States v. Piche
,
981
F.
2
d
706
(
4
th Cir.
1992
) (gook);
Huckaby v.Moore
,
142
F.
3
d
233
(
5
th Cir.
1998
) (honky).

67.
See, e.g.,
Gant v.Wallingford Bd. of Educ
,
69
F.
3
d
669
(
2
d Cir.
1995
);
United States v. Sowa
,
34
F.
3
d
447
(
7
th Cir.
1994
);
United States v. Ramey
24
F.
3
d
602
(
4
th Cir.
1994
);
United States v. Juvenile Male J.H.H.
,
22
F.
3
d
821
(
8
th Cir.
1994
);
United States v. McInnis
,
976
F.
2
d
1226
(
9
th 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.
3
d
1130
(
7
th 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
1980
s 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
2
pac,
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: