he word
"nigger" is a key term in American culture. It is a
profoundly hurtful racial slur meant to stigmatize African Americans;
on occasion, it also has been used against members of other racial or
ethnic groups, including Chinese, other Asians, East Indians, Arabs
and darker-skinned people. It has been an important feature of many of
the worst episodes of bigotry in American history. It has accompanied
innumerable lynchings, beatings, acts of arson, and other racially
motivated attacks upon blacks. It has also been featured in countless
jokes and cartoons that both reflect and encourage the disparagement
of blacks. It is the signature phrase of racial prejudice.
To understand fully, however, the depths and intensities, quirks and
complexities of American race relations, it is necessary to know in detail
the many ways in which racist bigotry has manifested itself, been appealed
to, and been resisted. The term "nigger" is in most contexts, a
cultural obscenity. But, so, too are the opinions of the United States
Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which ruled that African Americans
were permanently ineligible for federal citizenship, and Plessy v. Ferguson,
which ruled that state-mandated, "equal but separate" racial
segregation entailed no violation of the federal constitution. These
decisions embodied racial insult and oppression as national policy and are,
for many, painful to read. But teachers rightly assign these opinions to
hundreds of thousands of students, from elementary grades to professional
schools, because, tragically, they are part of the American cultural
inheritance. Cultural literacy requires detailed knowledge about the
oppression of racial minorities. A clear understanding of "nigger"
is part of this knowledge. To paper over that term or to constantly obscure
it by euphemism is to flinch from coming to grips with racial prejudice that
continues to haunt the American social landscape.
Leading etymologists believe that "nigger" was derived from an
English word "neger" that was itself derived from
"Negro", the Spanish word for black. Precisely when the term
became a slur is unknown. We do know, however, that by early in the 19th
century "nigger" had already become a familiar insult. In 1837, in The Condition of the Colored People
of the United States; and the Prejudice Exercised Towards Them, Hosea
Easton observed that "nigger" "is an opprobrious term,
employed to impose contempt upon [blacks] as an inferior race…The term
itself would be perfectly harmless were it used only to distinguish one
class from another; but it is not used with that intent…it flows from the
fountain of purpose to injure."
The term has been put to other uses. Some blacks, for instance, use
"nigger" among themselves as a term of endearment. But that is
typically done with a sense of irony that is predicated upon an
understanding of the term’s racist origins and a close relationship with
the person to whom the term is uttered. As Clarence Major observed in his
Dictionary of Afro-American Slang (1970), "used by black people among
themselves, [nigger] is a racial term with undertones of warmth and goodwill
– reflecting…a tragicomic sensibility that is aware of black
history." Many blacks object, however, to using the term even in that
context for fear that such usage will be misunderstood and imitated by
persons insufficiently attuned to the volatility of this singularly complex
and dangerous word.
Some observers object even to reproducing historical artifacts, such as
books or cartoons, that contain the term "nigger." This total,
unbending objection to printing the word under any circumstance is by no
means new. Writing in 1940 in his memoir The
Big Sea, Langston Hughes remarked that "[t]he word nigger to
colored people is like a red rag to a bull. Used rightly or wrongly,
ironically or seriously, of necessity for the sake of realism, or impishly
for the sake of comedy, it doesn’t matter. Negroes do not like it in any
book or play whatsoever, be the book or play ever so sympathetic in its
treatment of the basic problems of the race. Even though the book or play is
written by a Negro, they still do not like it. The word nigger, you see,
sums up for us who are colored all the bitter years of insult and struggle
in America."
Given the power of "nigger" to wound, it is important to
provide a context within which presentation of that term can be properly
understood. It is also imperative, however, to permit present and future
readers to see for themselves directly the full gamut of American cultural
productions, the ugly as well as the beautiful, those that mirror the
majestic features of American democracy and those that mirror America’s
most depressing failings.
For these reasons, I have advised the management of HarpWeek to present
the offensive text, cartoons, caricatures and illustrations from the pages
of Harper's Weekly, as well as other politically sensitive
nineteenth-century material, as they appeared in their historical context.
This same advice holds for slurs relating to Irish, Chinese, Germans, Native
Americans, Catholics, Jews, Mormons and other ethnic and religious groups.
By Randall
Kennedy, Professor
of Law, Harvard University