Randall Kennedy
speaker
1,781 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2023
last heard May 2023
Randall Kennedy’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
The word you're referring to is nigger.
The book that you're referring to is nigger, the strange career of a troublesome word.
The word dates back to the 16th, 17th century.
It's got a long lineage, in other words.
Basically...
Latin, basically Spanish, basically N-I-G, you know, black in various formulations.
We don't know actually how the term nigger became a slur.
So there were words that were close to N-I-G-G-E-R that were used in various ways.
For instance, N-I-G-G-U-H was used.
N-I-G-G-U-R is used.
And sometimes it was used in a way that seemed to be just purely descriptive.
We do know that by the early 19th century, it had become a slur.
It had become a derogatory word about which people complained.
But exactly how that came about, not altogether clear.
This book has generated a lot of controversy.
I thought it would.
It's probably generated more controversy than I anticipated.
It has certainly generated more...
more different sorts of experiences than I had anticipated.
So for instance, I did not think that writing this book would prompt people to ask me to be an expert witness in cases.
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