Language in Context: Nigger

Samuel L. Jackson is on the money here.  He schools reporter Jake Hamilton for asking him about use of the word "nigger" but refusing to say it actually.

HAMILTON: There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the use of the N-Word in this movie and-

JACKSON: No, nobody, none- The word would be…?

HAMILTON: (*sigh*) Oh, I can’t say it.

JACKSON: Why not?

HAMILTON: I don’t like to say it.

JACKSON: Have you ever said it?

HAMILTON: No, sir.

JACKSON: Try it.

HAMILTON: I don’t like to say it.

JACKSON: TRY IT.

HAMILTON: Really? Seriously?

JACKSON: We’re not gonna have this conversation unless you say it.

HAMILTON: …


JACKSON: You wanna move on to another question?

HAMILTON: Okay. Awesome.

JACKSON: (*laughs*)

HAMILTON: I… I don’t like to say it.

JACKSON: Oh come on!

HAMILTON: Will you say it?

JACKSON: [turning serious] No, f*ck no. That’s not the same thing.

HAMILTON: Why do you want me–

JACKSON: They’re gonna bleep it when you say it. On your show–

HAMILTON: I know, but–

JACKSON: SAY IT!

HAMILTON: I can’t, I- If I say it, this portion won’t make it to air.

JACKSON: Okay, forget it.

HAMILTON: Okay, I’ll skip it. Sorry, guys. It was a good question.

JACKSON: No it wasn’t.

HAMILTON: It was a great question.

JACKSON: It wasn’t a great question if you can’t say the word.

How can you talk about an issue involving a word without speaking it?  Because by using a euphemism - "the  N word," "the F Bomb," "the C word" - you undermine whatever controversy you wished to address.  Jackson is correct when he says, "It wasn't a great question if you can't say the word."

Are such words rude and vulgar?  Yes, indeed they are.  But I would argue that what determines the rudeness and the vulgarity is the context in which they are used.  The word nigger has appeared before in literature, music, and films:

• In The Commitments, the character says, "Your music should be abou' where you're from an' the sort o' people yeh come from.—Say it once, say it loud, I'm black an' I'm proud ...—The Irish are the niggers of  Europe, lads."

• John Lennon wrote a song called "Woman is the Nigger of the World."  In defending it, Congressman Ron Dellums said, "If you define 'nigger' as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others, whose opportunities are defined by others, whose role in society is defined by others, the good news is that you don't have to be black to be a nigger in this society. Most of the people in America are niggers."

• I have always loved punk rocker Patti Smith's song, "Rock N Roll Nigger."  The word is used to describe those "outside of society" as stated in the lyrics, and Smith sings, "Jimi Hendrix was a nigger, Jesus Christ and Grandma, too.  Jackson Pollock was a nigger . . .  nigger, nigger, nigger."

• In 2011, there was a controversy when a "sanitized" version of Mark twain's Huckleberry Finn was released wit the word nigger scrubbed from it so it could be "safely" taught.  In fact,one teacher said that after 2008 and the election of Obama, it needed to be scrapped from high school curricula out of respect for the President, along with John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird for use of nigger.  I am taken aback by such a suggestion as the last novel, in my opinion, is one of the greatest examples of humanity to all men as can be.

But the issue to be addressed is whether Quentin Tarantino's use of the word was excessive in his movie Django.  As if to suggest, "Okay, you are making a spaghetti western in a style of 70's Blackploitation films, and it is set in the South during the Civil War, so could you just, say, sprinkle the word here and there, but use it, ooh, no more than three or four times."  How banal.  I once used the word on this blog and one of my  neighbors in my old Santa Ana neighborhood, Doug Krause, accused me on the neighborhood Yahoo group of being a racist by using the word - without explaining the context in which I used it.

Because in all the examples I have recited above, nigger is not used gratuitously.  I will leave you with yet another Flannery O'Conner gem I found, the entire text of her shorty story, The Artificial Nigger.

"You may not like it a bit," Mr. Head continued.  "It'll be full of niggers."

The boy made a face as if he could handle a nigger.

"All right," Mr. Head said.  "You ain't ever seen a nigger."

"You wasn't up very early," Nelson said.

"You ain't ever seen a nigger," Mr. Head repeated. "There hasn't been a nigger in this county since we run that one out twelve years ago and that was before you were born." He looked at the boy as if he were daring him to say he had ever seen a Negro.

"How you know I never saw a nigger when I lived there before?" Nelson asked. "I probably saw a lot of niggers."

 "If you seen one you didn't know what he was," Mr. Head said, completely exasperated. "A six-month-old child don't know a nigger from anybody else."

"I reckon I'll know a nigger if I see one," the boy said and got up and straightened his slick sharply creased gray hat and went outside to the privy.


(An aside - although he continues his estrangement, I actually left a audiobook of Flannery O'Conner's short stories at the rectory of the hcurch where Fr. John Moneypenny resides.  A couple of weeks later, I realized he might have regifted it rather than accept it, knowing it was from me.  Without listening to it.  And my, oh my, wouldn't the recipient be surprised as ever to hear this story!  Okay, that made me laugh . . . I hope it did not happen but that would be hilarious, accepting a gift from a priest and hearing this.  Say, that makes me think of writing my own short story . . .)