Walter White, himself a novelist as well as a leading official with the NAACP, expressed both admiration and regret that he had not thought of the title first.

If the hoax served to highlight that issue, he suggested, then he had no problem with Collins's means of publicity. It is difficult to imagine anything that could be more discrediting to a civic leader than the remarks attributed to Smith.

Progress, however, begets new problems, and our subject is no exception. The very conditions that have helped to stigmatize nigger have also been conducive to the emergence of certain troubling tendencies. Among these latter are unjustified deception, overeagerness to detect insult, the repression of good uses of nigger, and the overly harsh

Perhaps in the context of antidiscrimination law at the workplace, moreover, it is better to err on the side of overenforcement rather than underenforcement. Still, even if that is so, it is important to remember that the N-word is not self-defining. Its actual meaning in any given instance always depends on surrounding circumstances. Deriving an

Adherents to this view can take inspiration from Ralph Ellison. There is an American Negro tradition, he wrote, “which teaches one to deflect racial provocation and to master and contain pain. It is a tradition which abhors as obscene any trading on one's own anguish for gain or sympathy; which springs not from a desire to deny the harshness of

Of all the things that have hurt the campaign against nigger-as-insult, unjustifiable lying and silly defenses have inflicted the most damage.

For this reason, we may count ourselves fortunate that the anti–hate-speech campaign of the regulationists fizzled and has largely subsided. This particular effort to do away with nigger-as-insult and its kindred symbols was simply not worth the various costs that success would have exacted.

Among poor black youth who… carry a burning resentment of white society. To growl that one is a nigga is a seductive gesture… that can feel bitterly empowering.”

The great failing of these theories is that, taken seriously, they would cast a protectionist pall over popular culture that would likely benefit certain minority entrepreneurs only at the net expense of society overall. Excellence in culture thrives, like excellence elsewhere, in a setting open to competition—and that includes competition