Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy Read Free Book Online

shooting the shit. Niggers are scared of revolution. 97
     
    Describing their intentions, Umar Bin Hassan writes that the poem constituted a “call to arms” because “niggers are human beings lost in somebody else's system of values and morals.” 98
    Many blacks also do with
nigger
what other members of marginalized groups have done with slurs aimed at shaming them. They have thrown the slur right back in their oppressors’ faces. They have added a positive meaning to
nigger
, just as women, gays, lesbians, poor whites, and children born out of wedlock have defiantly appropriated and revalued such words as
bitch, cunt, queer, dyke, redneck, cracker
, and
bastard
99
    Yet another source of allegiance to
nigger
is a pessimisticview of the African American predicament. Many blacks who use
nigger
in public before racially mixed audiences disdain dressing up their colloquial language. They do not even attempt to put their best foot forward for the purpose of impressing whites or eroding stereotypes because they see such missions as lost causes. They like to use
nigger
because it is a shorthand way of reminding themselves and everyone else precisely where they perceive themselves as standing in American society—the message being, “Always remember you's a nigger. As Bruce A. Jacobs observes, l o proclaim oneself a nigger is to declare to the disapproving mainstream, ‘You can't fire me. I quit.’ Hence the perennial popularity of the word. Among poor black youth who… carry a burning resentment of white society. To growl that one is a nigga is a seductive gesture… that can feel bitterly empowering.” 100
    Two additional considerations also warrant notice here, both of them having to do with the power of words to simultaneously create and divide communities. Some blacks use
nigger
to set themselves off from Negroes who refuse to use it. To proclaim oneself a nigger is to identify oneself as real, authentic, uncut, unassimilated, and unassimilable—the opposite, in short, of a Negro, someone whose rejection of
nigger
is seen as part of an effort to blend into the white mainstream. Sprinkling one's language with
niggers
is thus a way to “keep it real.” 101
    Roping off cultural turf is another aim of some blacks who continue to use
nigger
in spite of its stigmatized status. Certain forms of black cultural expression have become commercially valuable, and black cultural entrepreneurs fear that theseforms will be exploited by white performers who will adopt them and, tapping white-skin privilege, obtain compensation far outstripping that paid to black performers. This is, of course, a realistic fear in light of the long history of white entertainers’ becoming rich and famous by marketing in whiteface cultural innovations authored by their underappreciated black counterparts. A counterstrategy is to seed black cultural expression with gestures that are widely viewed as being off-limits to whites. Saying “nigger” is one such gesture. Even whites who immerse themselves in black hip-hop culture typically refrain from openly and unabashedly saying “nigger” like their black heroes or colleagues, for fear that it might be perceived as a sign of disrespect rather than one of solidarity.
    Some nonwhite entertainers have used
nigger
in their acts. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, for example, entitled a song “Woman Is the Nigger of the World,” 102 and Patti Smith wrote “Rock 'n’ Roll Nigger.” 103 But Lennon, Ono, and Smith performed in overwhelmingly white milieus. Rap, by contrast, is dominated by blacks. A few white rappers have achieved commercial success and won the respect of black artists and audiences. I am thinking here especially of the white rapper Eminem, a superstar in the hip-hop culture. Eminem has assumed many of the distinctive mannerisms of his black rap colleagues, making himself into a “brother” in many ways—in his music, his diction, his gait, his clothes, his associations. He refuses to