title: Nigger - The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
author:  Randall Kennedy 
description: <i>Nigger</i> is Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy's ornate, lively monograph on what he calls the "paradigmatic" racial slur in the English language. A neutral noun in the 17th century, <i>nigger</i> had, by 1830, become an "influential" insult. Kennedy traces the word's history in literature, song, film, politics, sports, everyday speech, and the courtroom. He also discusses its plastic, contradictory, and volatile place in contemporary American society. Should it be eradicated from dictionaries and the language? Should it be, somehow, regulated? What is the significance of its emergence among some blacks as a term with "undertones of warmth and good will"? Do blacks have a historical right to its use or does that place the term under a "protectionist pall"? With courage and grave measure Kennedy has, in effect, created a forum for discussion of the word he calls a "reminder of the ironies and dilemmas, the tragedies and glories, of the American experience." <i>--H. O'Billovitch</i>
zlib_text: N.I.G.G.E.R 
  The Slave & The Master  
  Uncomfortable, isn’t it? A brief history of the world’s greatest taboo. 
  Nigger. There it is in print. Those six letters, arranged in vulgar order and spoken in our minds as 
  we would not dare to speak them from our mouths, have brought us into the etymological valley 
  of the shadow of death. We stand as tourists before this word, neck deep in the darkness of its 
  history, choking on the stench of its legacy, so that we might understand it a bit better, the last 
  great taboo in the English language. Even if it is rarely spoken now, it still wields terrible power. 
  We tread a well-worn path. Many a critical eye has been cast on this word for over a century. 
  Most recently and bombastically, it has become the property of rap artists, who employ it in the 
  most nuanced of ways, like Nas’ untitled album – which he wanted to simply call Nigger. It is 
  difficult to remain un-piqued by such a provocative term, and at times it seems that there are few 
  peo