Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word

As an immigrant from England who survived perennial verbal assaults upon my supposed ethnic & religious roots with words I probably shouldn't type in here, this one I hadn't heard until I landed in Chicago in the '60s & got involved in the Civil Rights Movement. I gathered by the tone used by white Americans that it was a "bad" word. By the reactions to it, I saw it was also a "dangerous" one.

Then I listened as my boyfriend & his friends lobbed it between themselves all the time & I saw a whole 'nother use for it. Once, I forgot my station in life & used it too. All hell broke loose. Oops, sorry, wrong race, how 'bout that! So what about all those words you use for people of my gender?

40 years later, as a dumpy dowager, I asked a librarian in our little Northwest burg to see if they carried a copy of this book. Boy, was he stressed when I uttered the title word!

Professor Randall has illuminated the history & social meaning of this singular word in an engrossing, brief read. Should be on every high school reading list together with obligatory debates in which there's no censoring of the use of said word, along with all the others people throw at each other about their origins & worth!

Kennedy provides a wonderful account of the cultural history of a word that has wielded tremendous power throughout the course of American history in all its permutations. This word tells us as much about the American cultural landscape as the words 'liberty' or 'freedom' or 'equality' do.

Kennedy manages to discuss a big topic--the word's relation to race and racism, and its role in history, politics, law, literature and poetry, popular and folk music, and linguistics, and he does it in an intelligent, yet accessible, calm, well-balanced, and well-reasoned manner.

No small feat for such a tiny book. Although there are times where I wish he'd go into more depth, part of the book's charm is its brevity.

His discussion of the campaign to eliminate the word from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the dismissal of a Jefferson Community College professor, Central Michigan University coach, and other "misguided protests" should serve as a warning to all of us about the dangers of rashly pursuing legal/official action in order to enforce "politically correct" speech. As Randall wisely points out, an increase in reported verbal abuse CAN be a sign of racial progress insofar as one only bothers reporting such actions when one has a reasonable belief that there will be official or public condenmation of such actions. Wars over words spoken in a particular legitimate context, but nonetheless taken out of context, trivializes real human suffering when such words really are used as weapons. Kennedy even-handedly discusses both kinds of cases well and reminds us that, such things being as they are, even we as African Americans are divided over this complicated topic.

This is a very good book. It speaks about cases and thoughts of other peoples point of view of the usage of the word nigger.After reading this book i look at the N word very different. This book really makes you think when questions are being asked of the word. This book is something that you need to read. Reading this book you well be overwhelmed.

I picked this book up based on the title. I saw it sitting on the shelf and thought it would be a very honest book and worth reading.

The book offers a lot of information in forms of name, places, dates and events but it's not in such a dry manner that you feel like you're back in some boring high school class that you hated.

There is a lot of personality to the book, and being white, there were several times when I was expecting to turn the page and read something that was going to be really insulting to me based on my skin color. I was completely wrong, this book holds people accountable for the words they use.... no matter what color their skin. It's not written from the perspective of "you are to blame". It's written from the stand point of how,why, when, and where............ it's the first book in a long time that's prompted me to sit the book and take a few moments to think about what I just read.

The best part about it is that the book looks at the word in all the contexts that it is used. Which made for a very interesting read.

I think, although they probably wouldn't be allowed, this would be the perfect book for kids to read in school. Mainly because it's an important topic, and the book isn't written in the "I'm right, you're wrong" manner.. so it allows a great deal of room for thought on the points brought up in the book.

I did feel however, that something was missing from the end.
I didn't expect this book to "fix" anything or be a solution to any problems concerning the topic but the ending seemed really open in a bad way.

I would highly suggest this book to anyone interested in this topic, similar topics, and for young people especially.
I think a lot of people might be turned off by the title, but they are really missing out.

It's not very often that one comes across a totally fair and balanced yet excellent work of non-fiction. It's even more exciting when one comes across such a book by chance. I first saw this book at the local branch of the Los angeles Public Library. Its title, which carries the singlemost offensive and taboo word in USA, was the factor that intrgued me. I expected it to be a preachy, judgemental book. And was I wrong!

This is one of the best books of non-fiction that I ever read in my life. To me, it's a privilege to have read this book. I now consider Randall Kennedy, a Professor at the Harvard Law School and author of this book, to be one of the most level-headed, analytical and balanced authors I'm familiar with.

Without malice or biterness, Kennedy presents the history of the N-word and its connotation,at the same time making it clear that not every racist used it, or not every person who used this word was/is a racist. He puts forward arguments in opposition to the assertion, which is based on the past history of slavery in the US, by many people that while any white person's using this word is unacceptable, a black person can use it to address another black person.

Perhaps not everyone agrees with his line of argument; I'm sure he has many admirers and many others who denounce him. But the point is that he presents the whole case without any bias, malice or biterness towards anyone. He thoroughly studies the cases, gathers and analyzes all the data he could collect,m and then presents these to us. He's a detached narrator, the kind of people the present day world needs in abundance.