Abstract
The black experience in what is now the United States of America has been one of perpetual racial injustice from the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the early seventeenth century to the present day. Significant among the phenomena that have contributed to this perpetual state are cross-burning, lynching, and using “nigger” to refer to black folk. Since the word has been an integral part of lynching, cross-burning and other anti-black violence, it is understandable that it has come to be characterized as both the ultimate American insult and the ultimate expression of racism and white superiority. Although black folk have historically used the word amongst themselves with a number of different meanings, some, mostly younger, white folk, have taken to using the word to address black folk with the belief that doing so is morally benign. In this chapter I argue for a negative answer to the question: Are there good reasons for thinking that the use of “nigger” by white folk to address black folk is not morally objectionable?
Thanks to Deirdre Golash for her insightful comments and to the AMINTAPHIL members who attended the session where an earlier version of this essay was rigorously discussed.
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- 1.
Cf., e.g., Kenneth Einar Himma, “On the Definition of Unconscionable Racial and Sexual Slurs,” Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol.33, No. 3 (Fall 2002): 516.
- 2.
Geneva Smitherman, Black Talk: Words and Phrases From the Hood to the Amen Corner (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 168.
- 3.
Oxford English Dictionary Online (Oxford University Press, 2009) http://dictionary.oed.com (accessed July 27, 2009).
- 4.
Latin Dictionary (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 2003).
- 5.
Ibid. This is consistent with Kant’s understanding of black folk, saying of a “Negro carpenter” that “this fellow was quite black from head to foot, a clear proof that what he said was stupid,” in Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, trans. John T. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 113.
- 6.
David Pilgrim and Phillip Middleton, “Nigger and Caricatures,” (Ferris State University Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, September 2001), http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/caricature/homepage.htm (accessed October 21, 2007).
- 7.
Randall Kennedy, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002), 27.
- 8.
As former slave Sarah Fitzpatrick recalls of her years in bondage, “we didn’t have many lyn’chings den,” in John W. Blassingame, ed. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 648.
- 9.
Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 343 (2003).
- 10.
Donald P. Green and Andrew Rich, “White Supremacist Activity and Crossburnings in North Carolina,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 14, No. 3 (September 1998): 263.
- 11.
There was an upswing in cross burnings in the late 1990’s, with 30 documented cases in 1995 and over 45 cases in 1996; see “Number of Cross Burnings on Increase,” Greensboro News Record, 29 December 1996, A6.
- 12.
Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 390 (2003) (Thomas, J., dissenting), quoting United States v. Skillman, 922 F. 2d 1370, 1378 (9th Cir. 1991).
- 13.
Virginia v. Black 538 U.S. 343, 394 (2003) (Thomas, J., dissenting).
- 14.
“Arson Charge Stands in N.C. Cross Burning,” Morning Star, 2 March 1999, B5; “4 Face Charges in Cross-Burning Case,” Morning Star, 1 November 1996, B4. Although both articles report that Cullins and Sutton “heard racial slurs yelled by the three men,” it seems almost impossible that they did not use some version of “nigger.”
- 15.
“Cross-Burning Penalty Appealed,” Washington Post, 24 January 2004, A6. Again, while this article reports that the men used “a racial epithet that they also wrote on a sign tacked to a tree,” it seems almost impossible that this epithet was not “nigger” or some version thereof.
- 16.
Leon F. Litwack, “Hellhounds,” in Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, eds. James Allen, Hilton Als, John Lewis, and Leon F. Litwack (Santa Fe: Twin Palms Publishing, 2000), 10, emphasis deleted.
- 17.
Ibid., 14.
- 18.
Ibid., 12, emphasis deleted.
- 19.
Ibid., 26, emphasis deleted.
- 20.
As one self-described “colored man” sees it, people have used “nigger” as a “metaphorical lynching before the real one.” See Hilton Als, “GWTW [Gone With The Wind],” in Without Sanctuary, 39.
- 21.
Roy Bragg, “Jasper trial defendant says Byrd’s throat was cut,” San Antonio Express-News, 17 September 1999, and Region VI NAACP Emergency Resolution to Support Jasper, Texas, www.texasnaacp.org/archive/jasper.htm (accessed July 6, 2009).
- 22.
James Gunter, Affidavit of Probable Cause, State of Texas, County of Jasper, June 9, 1998, www.texasnaacp.org/archive/jasper1.gif (accessed July 23, 2009).
- 23.
The most highly publicized noose hangings in recent memory occurred in Jena, Louisiana in the summer of 2006. See Mark Potok, et al., “The Geography of Hate,” New York Times, 25 November 2007, Op-Ed, 11. In response to a surge in noose hangings, the state of New York made it a hate crime of felony first degree aggravated harassment. Cyril Josh Barker, “Hanging Nooses Now a Hate Crime,” New York Amsterdam News, 22–28 May 2008, 3. Other states, like Louisiana and North Carolina, are considering similar legislation. Whitney Woodward, “Bill Would Make Noose Displays a Felony Crime,” Daily Reflector, 24 June 2008, B1; “Outlawing the Noose,” Jet, 7 July 2008, 22.
- 24.
Cash Michaels, “Rev. Al Sharpton Calls Megan Williams Case ‘National Disgrace,’ ” Chicago Defender, 28–30 December 2007, 6.
- 25.
While it has been clear to me for some time that there are black folk who use “nigga” in conversation with other black folk and those who do not, I first heard this expression when Michael Eric Dyson used it in the course of interviewing a black author on C-Span in 2008. In contrast to his interviewee, Dyson characterized himself as a “nigga-callin black man.”
- 26.
Smitherman, 5, 7.
- 27.
Ibid., 17–18.
- 28.
Ibid., 20, small caps deleted.
- 29.
Blassingame, 641. It is important to note that Fitzpatrick’s liberal use of “nigga” was almost certainly facilitated by her having been interviewed by a black interviewer, in this case Thomas Campbell, a co-worker of George Washington Carver (xliv–xlviii, 605). Quoted below is another former slave, Henry Baker, who was also interviewed by Campbell.
- 30.
Ibid., 641–642.
- 31.
Ibid., 639, 640.
- 32.
If Bill Lawson is correct, “ownership was the defining feature of oppression for slaves.” Howard McGary and Bill E. Lawson, Between Slavery and Freedom: Philosophy and American Slavery (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), 2.
- 33.
This analysis responds to the concern expressed in Randall Kennedy’s claim that “[t]here is no compelling justification for presuming that black usage of nigger is permissible while white usage is objectionable.” See Randall L. Kennedy, “Who Can Say ‘Nigger’? … and Other Considerations.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 26 (Winter 1999/2000): 92. As Geneva Smitherman sees the problem, “the frequent use of nigga in Rap Music… and throughout Black Culture generally, where the word takes on meanings other than the historical negative, has created a linguistic dilemma in the crossover world and in the African American community. Widespread controversy rages about the use of nigga among Blacks – especially the pervasive public use of the term – and about whether or not whites can have license to use [the word] with the many different meanings that Blacks give to it.” See Smitherman167–168.
- 34.
Ibid., 25, small caps deleted.
- 35.
Joan C. Callahan, “Speech That Harms: The Case of Lesbian Families,” in On Feminist Ethics and Politics, ed. Claudia Card (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 250.
- 36.
Naomi Zack, Philosophy of Science and Race (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), 42.
- 37.
Charles R. Lawrence III, “If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus,” in Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment, ed. Mari J. Matsuda, Charles R. Lawrence III, Richard Delgado, and Kimberlè Williams Crenshaw (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993), 74.
- 38.
Ibid., 67-68.
- 39.
Richard Delgado, “Words That Wound: A Tort Action for Racial Insults, Epithets, and Name Calling,” in Words That Wound, 94.
- 40.
Diana Tietjens Meyers, “Rights in Collision: A Non-Punitive, Compensatory Remedy for Abusive Speech,” Law and Philosophy, Vol.14, No. 2 (May, 1995): 215.
- 41.
Ibid., 215.
- 42.
Mari J. Matsuda, “Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim’s Story,” in Words That Wound, 39.
- 43.
Mary Kate McGowan, “Oppressive Speech.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 87, No. 3 (September, 2009): 406.
- 44.
Jabari Asim, The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 220.
- 45.
Toure, “The Serious Side of Eminem: The Rolling Stone Interview,” Rolling Stone, November 25, 2004, www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/serious_side_of_eminem/page (accessed August 15, 2008). As Michael Eric Dyson observes, “Whites who possess intimate knowledge of black culture are the very people who know the tortured history of the term and thus refrain from using it, at least publicly.” See Michael Eric Dyson, Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2001), 148.
- 46.
Bulworth, prod. Warren Beatty and Peter Jan Brugge, dir. Warren Beatty, 108 min., Twentieth Century Fox, 1998, videocassette.
- 47.
The treatment of a pregnant runaway slave in Missouri who bit the finger of a perspective purchaser after being captured and confined to a “nigger pen” is paradigmatic of the genesis of this sort of familiarity: “Martha received a kick that ended the life of her child and nearly her own. When she had sufficiently recovered to be salable another would be purchaser demanded that she strip for inspection, and upon her refusal to do so her clothing was torn from her and she was given thirty lashes, well laid on.” See Blassingame, 507.
- 48.
Locke took it as a command of God that white men should “subdue the Earth” for their benefit. On his view, “the Earth it self ” is “the chief matter of Property” and the “chief end” of civil society is “the preservation of Property.” See John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 290, 291 (bk. II chap. V), 323 (bk. II chap. VII). As Charles Mills puts it, “Locke’s unenlightened Native Americans are not sufficiently ‘industrious and rational’ to appropriate and add value to the land God has given them, unlike hardworking day laborers in England.” See Charles W. Mills, “Whose Fourth of July? Frederick Douglass and ‘Original Intent,’” in Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader, ed. Bill E. Lawson and Frank M. Kirkland (Malden: Blackwell, 1999), 122. According to Locke’s theory of property, “a relatively small number of people have justly appropriated or acquired the world’s wealth, leaving the majority with no property but only with their talents and persons.” See Bernard R. Boxill, “Radical Implications of Locke’s Moral Theory: The Views of Frederick Douglass,” in Subjugation and Bondage: Critical Essays on Slavery and Social Philosophy, ed. Tommy L. Lott (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 36.
- 49.
Barry Chevannes, Rastafari: Roots and Ideology (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), ix.
- 50.
Ibid., x, 154, 157.
- 51.
Ibid., 158. “[T]he title ‘Warrior’ or ‘Dreadful’ was conferred on those who distinguished themselves with ascetic discipline.” “In earning the name ‘warrior,’ members were motivated not by a sense of office, for warrior was not an office as such [,] but by a sense of deep religious conviction. In time, the designation gave way to a more appropriate biblical one, ‘Bonogee’ [Boanerges], or ‘Sons of thunder,’ the name Jesus gave to the brothers James and John,” 156 (the third set of brackets are Chevannes’s).
- 52.
Ibid., 156.
- 53.
Ibid., 132.
- 54.
On white fear see Rodney C. Roberts, “The American Value of Fear and the Indefinite Detention of Terrorist Suspects,” Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (October, 2007): 412–414, and “Criminalization and Compensation,” Legal Theory, Vol. 11, No. 2 (June, 2005): 156–158.
- 55.
James Ledbetter, “Imitation of Life,” VIBE, Special Preview Issue, September 1992, quoted in Smitherman, 16.
- 56.
Virginia v. Black 538 U.S. 343, 344 (2003).
- 57.
J. Angelo Corlett and Robert Francescotti, “Foundations of a Theory of Hate Speech.” Wayne Law Review, Vol. 48 (2002): 1086–1087.
- 58.
Ibid., 1087.
- 59.
Dyson, 145.
- 60.
Stan Simpson, “In Defining the N-word, Let Meaning Be Very Clear,” Hartford Courant, 3 November 1997, quoted in Kennedy, Nigger, 201 n. 27.
- 61.
Michael Eric Dyson, “Nigger Gotta Stop,” The Source, June 1999, quoted in Kennedy, Nigger, 51.
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Roberts, R.C. (2010). The Morality of Using “Nigger”. In: Golash, D. (eds) Freedom of Expression in a Diverse World. AMINTAPHIL: The Philosophical Foundations of Law and Justice, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8999-1_7
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