( 8 reviews )
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Posted: Mar 13 2009
I got this book from the library last summer, mostly because I was intrigued by the title. I blew through it pretty fast, because once you start reading, you just want to read more. This is a great book, filled with little facts and stories about where it came from. There's even a part about the times it was used in open court. Good book. 4 stars because it gets repeditive at times, but it's still definitely worth a look.
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Posted: Jan 28 2009
I own the kindle version of this book. I have a slightly different perspective on this word because I think it illustrates the truth of this statement: racism (today, not 1960) is blacks bigotted against whites. Furthermore, what's with the term 'african-american'? uNless you were born in Africa and immigrated to the USA you are NOT african-american. You are simply AMERICAN. This is a melting pot country, correct? Maybe not, after all. I don't call myself white-american and I wouldn't give a rat's a* if someone called me 'honkey' or some other intended-to-be-derogatory word. Why should black people be able to use the "n" word and white people cannot? It's just too stupid! My parents, as kids, immigrated with their parents from Hungary and Wales, respectively. They are 'hungarian-american' and 'welsh-american' (although they don't call themselves anything but 'American". Back to the 'n' word, I think that when you give power to a word, any word, it's just a way to 'truncate' your worldview. Life is short, then you die, why obsess about a word?? To say that the 'n' word is derogatory, sure, okay, but to make it 'bigger' than the 'f' word or the 'c' word is making a bigotted, political statement. Flame me if you want to, but it's JUST A WORD. I have been known to call people 'trash' (the skin color doesn't matter when I use that word). The only time I used the n word was as a 'slap in the face' expletive, when I really wanted to shoot the guy I flamed... he was a black person who was also a decades-long friend. He borrowed $4K from me but never paid me back and then told me he wasn't going to pay me back because I was 'rich' (not) and he was 'poor'. Oh you betcha I flamed him with the 'n' word, with the absolutely deliberate intent to 'slap him with a word'. So, the 'n' word DOES have a use! As for the book author's mention of Amos & Andy, it was a GREAT tv show that I watched as a kid and never thought it denigrated black people, it was JUST a comedy (a very funny show, actually, with very endearing characters)... just exactly like the current black-people comedy shows created by Tyler Perry -- except those shows portray black people as hugely fat or crack-addicted. (Are his shows black versions of "Roseanne"?) But I don't see any news stories about black people complaining about Tyler Perry's depictions of black people, which is odd since he REALLY likes to diss his fellow black americans. Sticks and stones.. remember, can break bones, but NOT words!!! Get over it!!! Stop calling a word 'proof of racism' unless you mean from the perspective of 'only black people can say the 'n' word, white people cannot' [and what about asian people, can THEY use the word?] or I'll keep pointing out that CURRENTLY it is black americans blaming white americans for their own lack of progress. Yeah, right [not].
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Posted: Mar 19 2008
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!
