"Nigger"

I believe the term “nigger” should certainly be avoided these days, especially when used in a construction that has obvious negative or racist connotations. At the same time I do not understand the lengths to which people are going to avoid using the term altogether. The name “Niggerhead” was the name of the hunting ranch where Rick Perry hunted for many years and, I guess, must have inherited from his father. Niggerhead was the name painted on a large rock at the entrance to this ranch, apparently when Perry’s grandfather bought it. It is claimed that eventually the name was painted over but it is still visible. Many people are upset about this, demanding to know precisely when it was painted over, why the rock wasn’t just removed, and so on. I don’t object to these objections, I believe it should have been eliminated entirely, and I do believe it does indicate a terrible insensitivity to the use of that particular word at the moment. I don’t know that Rick Perry is necessarily a racist although I would not be at all surprised if he was (as I believe are most Americans, and particularly Republicans).

What I find so curious about this controversy is the unwillingness, even apparent fear on the part of almost anyone, and especially Newspeople, to actually speak the term. It is as if even reporting that the word everyone claims to be so upset about is so taboo as to be unthinkable. When talking about it they universally say the “n” word or the “n” word followed by head, rather than just speaking the word itself. I find no such reticence when it comes to words like “bitch” or “homosexual” or “retarded,” or even such other ethnic “slurs” like “squaw,” which has also become a no-no in recent years. People still say quite openly that “Squaw Mountain” has been replaced, or “Squaw creek” or whatever. Nor do they seem to react so strenuously to terms like “The Dago Queen” (the name of a mine) or “the Pope’s Nose,” or even “Montezuma’s Revenge.” While a few hypersensitive types might raise their eyebrows to these terms the vast majority would not, and in fact would quite likely think nothing of it. The sensitivity over the term “nigger” seems to me to have become grossly over exaggerated, especially as it is not uncommonly used by Black people themselves. It is rather like W.C. Fields exclamation “There is an Ethiopian in the fuel supply,” anything to avoid the obvious. Furthermore, when you live in a culture where every third word you read or hear nowadays seems to be “fuck,” the reticence to say “nigger” seems to me to be overkill.

The term “nigger” was not always necessarily a term of disrespect or one with obvious discriminatory intentions. It was, in my opinion, often simply a descriptive term. My father, for example, only rarely spoke of Black people, but when he did he called them “niggers.” I am absolutely positive my father did not believe he was speaking offensively about such people. I know that he had, during his lifetime, often gambled with Blacks, and he spoke highly of them if they were good at what they did. Of all the people I have ever known he would have subscribed most positively to the Kipling verse: “There is neither border, birth nor breed when two strong men stand face-to-face though they come from the ends of the earth,” even though I am certain he never read Kipling. He always favored Joe Louis even though most of his peers did not, and he played bridge with the only Black person that lived in our town and admired his skill at the game. Similarly, we always called Brazil nuts “Nigger toes” without any thought whatsoever what that might have meant or implied. Mark Twain did not use the term in his famous work, “Huckleberry Finn” to disparage Blacks, and certainly Joseph Conrad did not write “The Nigger of the Narcissus” as a treatise against Blacks. This is not to say there were not those who did use the term in a decidedly prejudiced way, but it had a wider connotation than that. I have no idea what in the world the term “Niggerhead” could have meant when applied to a hunting lodge, nor do I know for sure it was entirely derogatory although I suppose it was.

I believe that words that have developed over time particularly derogatory images and meanings, like “nigger,” “retard,” “coon,” “towel-head,” “Jap,” “Kraut,” “Fag,” “Queer, and so on should quite definitely not be used anymore, but I also do not believe they should disappear from the language entirely or should be excised from the text of famous works like Huckleberry Finn or The Nigger of the Narcissus. This seems to me to be particularly hypocritical, pretending that such words and concepts never occurred at all, when they certainly did and are an integral part of our history. You cannot destroy prejudice and hate by pretending it did not, or does not exist. Obviously the meaning of words depends upon the context in which they appear. “Jew,” for example, can have a negative connotation as well as being merely a descriptive term, “Nazi” would seem to be always negative as well as descriptive, “Communist” as well. Even the term “Muslim” at the moment can have a purely negative connotation, socialist, too, and in my world, the term “Republican” has come to denote something so unpleasant, greedy, malicious, thoughtless, and ignorant I try to avoid it before going to bed.

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.