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Is using this word ever okay? And who has the power to decide?

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Is using this word ever okay? And who has the power to decide?

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In the two decades since he published his book "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word," Randall Kennedy has witnessed the persistence of the n-word as "an oft-heard feature of the soundtrack of American racism at its most base and violent." He's also watched as efforts to expunge the word have "lost perspective, abandoned essential norms of freedom of thought and expression, and degenerated into petty tyranny." While he has discovered that the word is here to stay with all its repugnant associations, he believes it also can be put to use for good. As he writes in a new introduction to his book, rereleased on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, he approves of the use of the word "as a tool of antiracist protest, or as a comedic intervention, or as a gesture of solidarity, or as a sly term of endearment." These uses, he argues, "manifest a wonderful capacity to transmute ugliness into art."

Illustrating Kennedy's point, comedian Roy Wood Jr. turned the ugliness of the n-word into art in his 2021 special, "Imperfect Messenger." In the show, Wood praises Leonardo DiCaprio for his vivid portrayal of an enslaver in the 2012 film "Django Unchained." White actors, Wood contends, need to play heinous characters in the interests of accurately depicting stories of racism. And then Wood gives his routine its comedic turn, saying DiCaprio is "one of the bravest White allies I ever seen in my life. ... He put 10 toes in the ground and called ... Jamie Foxx a nigger to his face, in front of Samuel L. Jackson - bra-ve-ry."

Such an incident, had it occurred off-screen, might have spelled the end of DiCaprio's career or, at least, his standing as a well-respected, A-list actor. But in context, for authenticity's sake, it was 100 percent necessary.

Kennedy would likely concur. As he writes in his introduction, "There are people of all backgrounds, including different racial identities, who put nigger to uses that are enjoyable, instructive, and moving." He provides as examples the work of writers Carl Van Vechten, Flannery O'Connor and Mark Twain, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, comedian Lenny Bruce and a number of others.

His point is that a racial asymmetry exists wherein Black people are the only ones "allowed" to say nigger (instead of the euphemistic idiom "n-word"). Such linguistic policing does not take into account the context in which the word appears: its use in everyday speech often as a slur or its mention in a title of a work, or in a direct quote.

But this troublesome word presents even further complication.

There's another facet that Kennedy largely overlooks as exemplified in an incident he recalls at the New School in 2019. Professor Laurie Sheck upset a student in her graduate creative writing class during a discussion of a documentary about James Baldwin called "I Am Not Your Negro." Sheck told the class that the film's title was a modification of a phrase Baldwin had uttered in an interview. He had said: "I am not your nigger." In explaining, Sheck used the full word, and the student's complaint led to an investigation by the New School administration, which ultimately determined the professor had not violated university policy on discrimination.

I taught a class at the New School in the fall semester following this incident, and it was, understandably, a focus of the new faculty orientation. We were led in a number of exercises regarding offensive language and how to handle our encounters with it in the classroom. But I never felt that Sheck had erred in saying "nigger" aloud - she did not use the word to insult any student or Baldwin, or to express any disdain for Black people. She uttered a quote that contained the word. Where she was at fault, to my mind, was acting as though she had the sole power to determine whether it was appropriate for her to say the word. She used her position as instructor and ultimate authority within the classroom to subject her students to a pedagogical choice that could cause them anguish.But if the classroom is a collaborative space, where Sheck and other White professors are not burdened by the same insults as their students, then such decisions must be weighed in collaboration with those who would be most affected. The solution is to redistribute power. In my class, whenever abhorrent language appeared in a text, we had a discussion prior to the lesson to decide whether we would allow anyone in class, including me, to utter the slur aloud. If anyone was uncomfortable, we agreed that no one would say it. The power was not mine alone.

Kennedy spends little time, in the original book and in the new introduction, considering this power, but it is the crux of the issue. Even if there are a few reasonable instances when a White person may utter the word - while quoting Baldwin or playing an enslaver in a film - they still exist within a larger world in which a White person saying it signals something outside of that particular moment. Our debates over the word's use are proxies for the more uncomfortable conversations about race that we tend to shy away from in this country - conversations about the way people are treated like niggers (which is to say, subhuman) and who has the power to treat them as such.

The word is still injurious not only because of its specific origin as a slur but also because anti-Black conditions remain so pervasive at every level of our institutions. Black people continue to be demeaned, abused and exploited as a class. Many U.S. communities are moving with all deliberate speed to outlaw the teaching of the nation'shistory of enslavement. Within such a context, it is not as innocuous as Kennedy makes it out to be when comedian and talk show host Bill Maher uses the word in a joking manner. On his show "Real Time," Maher interviewed Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. When Sasse invited Maher to visit Nebraska, saying, "We'd love to have you work in the fields with us," the host replied: "Work in the fields? Senator, I'm a house nigger." Not only doesMaher (inexplicably) wield immense power to sway the racial discourse in this country, he also is in a position to hire and fire Black people and influence their career paths within his industry. That he would make such a "joke" calls into question whether he has the judgment to make personnel decisions fairly.

Speaking of judgment: Kennedy spends much of the book examining legal cases involving the word, most having to do with terms of employment. Kennedy essentially re-litigates each of his examples, assessing whether judgment on the use of the word in each context was justly rendered. Absent from this analysis is that the majority of judges in the United States are not Black - meaning that more often than not the ultimate authority, in a legal setting, about the use of the word will be someone who will never feel the indignity of being called a nigger. Without institutional power, Black people have limited opportunity to render judgment on people who cross antisocial boundaries and should be outcast as pariahs for such inappropriate conduct.

In his riff on DiCaprio, Wood observes that after playing a monstrous enslaver in "Django Unchained," DiCaprio did not appear on screen with a Black actor for nearly 10 years. "He knew," Wood says, "once you call Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington 'nigger' in front of Samuel L. Jackson, you got to lay low for a decade."

Wood was joking. But his gibe had a larger meaning. Of course, people can say anything they want. That doesn't mean there won't be consequences.
Mychal Denzel Smith is the author of "The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word - With a New Introduction by the Author Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream."
By Randall Kennedy

Pantheon. 194 pp. $25

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Review | Is using this word ever okay? And who has the power to decide?

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Randall Kennedy makes the case for using it, sometimes, in the 20th-anniversary edition of his book.

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N-word: The troubled history of the racial slur

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N-word: The troubled history of the racial slur

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"It's the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language."

That was the view of prosecutor Christopher Darden when the issue of saying the N-word came up in the 1995 murder trial of US football star OJ Simpson.

And it's a view that many people still share today.

It now says there must be "exceptional editorial reasons to use the strongest racist terms" - and this must be personally approved by the corporation's divisional directors.

When I hear the word I shudder. I think of my dad hearing the words, "Get the [N-word]!" while being chased through the streets of Liverpool by racist football fans as he went to watch Man City.

The word can be traced back in history to slavery.

It was in the summer of 1619 when a ship arrived in a port in Virginia carrying around 20 Africans who were chained up to be sold as slaves.

"It's really tied into the idea that African people aren't really human beings," says Kehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at Birmingham City University.

"They were more like an animal than a human being, a beast of burden, could be bought and sold, could be thrown overboard ships and literally had no rights.

"So when the N-word is used that's essentially what it's used for. So I would hope most people would understand why that is deeply offensive and problematic because it still is used in that context now."

You only have to watch films like 12 Years a Slave to see how the word was used to make black people feel inferior and unworthy.

The full word was a nickname British scientist Charles Darwin and his wife Emma used in their letters to each other in the 1840s.

"Part of the thing about the N-word and why it was used for the dog and why it's used in that kind of affectionate way is because we were seen to be like animals," Prof Andrews tells me.

"There's different versions of it where, on the one hand, the good [N-word] is a slave, they're subservient, they do what they're told, they're good to their master.

"And then the other side of that is that a bad [N-word] is somebody who's really violent, masculine and dangerous. But it's all rooted in the same basic premise that we're not really humans."

After World War Two, the racism directed at black and Asian people who had emigrated to the UK from Commonwealth countries saw the word come to be used as a racial slur in everyday life - and politics.

This is something I didn't know about until now, and I did GCSE history at school. It does makes me wonder if teaching these difficult moments in our past in school would help more people to understand the horrible legacy of the word and why it's so offensive.

That election was more than 50 years ago - but the word is still used in that derogatory way today.

But not everyone sees the word as being problematic.

In July this year, the name of the Dambusters' dog was removed from its gravestone as RAF Scampton "did not want to give prominence to an offensive term".

Caller Mark said discussions around the use of it had become "over-sensitised.".

Caller Shaun said the word has been "demonised", adding: "If you walked up and slapped me in the face I'd be offended, if you call me any name under the sun I'd just rise above it and walk on. It's just a word, it doesn't hurt."

Questions that always get asked when the word comes up are "Why do some black people still use it?" and "Why can't white people sing it if it's in a rap song?"

It makes me think back to one of my favourite comedy films, Rush Hour, and Chris Tucker's character - who is black - uses it to greet his black friend saying, "What's up my [N-word]?"

Then a few minutes later, Jackie Chan's character copies him and says it to a black person and it starts a huge fight.

You'll also hear the word in songs by black US rappers and in UK grime music.

She said historically black enslaved people created a language for themselves, "often using the framework and actual words of their enslavers".

"Black people have successfully divested the N-word of its original offence and in our struggle to survive the devastation it occasions, gave it new meaning, made it approachable, survivable," she wrote.

I spoke to Dr Stanford about this further and she said the word was a "complex term" and she "doesn't necessarily reject it". During our chat she used the full word and every time I heard it I could just feel my body tensing up.

"The word is being policed because black folks did not have a choice in the matter at a certain time when it was used to their disadvantage, to abuse and to inscribe and reinforce the sense of black people as inferior by white people," she said.

"That the word survives is an act of redemption by black folk. The word survives on the conditions that black folks have inscribed for it and nobody else can take that. And it becomes violent when other people try to take it and use it."

"So if I say this is my word, let me have this one word, please let me have that word."

Dr Stanford says white people cannot use the word because its origin in slavery hasn't been lost.

"These are people who have created the word in the first place, but who have now lost power in relation to it, they have lost the power to use it with impunity, they have lost the power to reclaim it."

Prof Andrews adds: "If you understand the history of the word and how it's been used, it's not for white people to use, it's not for anybody else to use.

"If you look at the way that we use the word, which would be more acceptable - and I'm not saying I'm pro using it - it's about endearment, it's about family, it's about connections, it's about recognising the situation that we're in.

"So if you're not black you can't do that. You actually can't use the word in the way that we use it. It's not possible, because you're not in that space. So any other usage of it is completely wrong."

But there are some people who feel the word shouldn't be used by anyone - whatever their race.

He said he understands the history of reclaiming and owning the term of abuse, but added: "I say the time has come to do away with it. If black lives matter, don't own it, reject it."

Illustration by Gerard Groves

Cherry Wilson is a proud northerner who recently moved back to Stockport, Greater Manchester, where she grew up.

She studied journalism in Sheffield and was the first in her family to go to university. Her passion is telling the stories of the people and communities behind the headlines, exploring issues that matter to them.

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N-word: The troubled history of the racial slur

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The term can be traced back to slavery and to many it's one of the most offensive words out there.

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Lesson Plan - Intent vs. Impact: Why Does it Matter?

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Lesson Plan - Intent vs. Impact: Why Does it Matter?