His case is one of dozens analyzed in "Nigger," a new book by Randall Kennedy, an African-American scholar at the Harvard Law School.
James, feigning apology, then pulled out from another pocket the paper, in which he had discussed the case of Richard Hodgson, a former secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research, who, before he died, in 1905, said he'd try to speak through Mrs. Piper, and, to prove that it was really him, promised he'd speak in "nigger talk".
Still, there'd been no change in Nigger's vital signs.
"They piled in, niggering everything in sight, motherfucking the driver, boasting into the air unbidden about getting their dicks sucked and calling everyone in the area a faggot".
The New Yorker, March 9 , 1968P. 130 Review of Bullins's three one-acters: "The Electron-in Nigger," A Son Come Home," and "Clara's Ole Man".
By Brendan Gill The New Yorker, March 9 , 1968P. 130 Review of Bullins's three one-acters: "The Electron-in Nigger," A Son Come Home," and "Clara's Ole Man".
A Wisconsin officer whose regiment was at Honey Springs attested, "I never believed in niggers before, but by Jasus, they are hell for fighting".
White audiences can laugh in between "nigger", "coon", and "pickaninny" because the good white guys (cops) are helping the black guy catch the absurdly more racist white guys.
(In "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus,' " we are left in no doubt that James Wait is six-three).
The singer Mary J. Blige, for instance, has not followed her male contemporaries in embracing "nigger" as code for teen-age cool.
(After reading it, Hughes wrote a wry letter to Van Vechten: "If yours was 'Nigger Heaven,' this is 'Nigger Hell.' ") And the witty and acerbic novelist Wallace Thurman delivered a mixed verdict on the novel itself, even as he lambasted its critics: In writing "Nigger Heaven" the author wavered between sentimentality and sophistication.
