Read Online Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy - Free Book Online Page A

whites, situating “HNIC” in a context that, for some observers, raised several difficulties: the embarrassment of discussing certain racial topics before a predominantly white audience; fear of, and anger about, a white entrepreneur intruding into black cultural territory; and the suspicion that whatever the setting, whites derive racist pleasure out of hearing, saying, or even alluding to “nigger.” For these reasons, even blacks who use
nigger
themselves adamantly insist that it is wrong for whites to do so. 27 On the album containing his “I hate niggers” skit, for example, Chris Rock also presents a sketch in which a white man approaches him after a performance and appreciatively repeats some of what Rock has just said onstage. The next sound heard is that of the white man being punched. 28 Rock's message is clear: white people cannot rightly say about blacks some of the things that blacks themselves say about blacks. Just as a son is privileged to address his mother in ways that outsiders cannot (at least not in the son's presence), so, too, is a member of a race privileged to address his racial kin in ways proscribed to others.
    Although many whites follow this convention, some rebel. Two noteworthy examples are Carl Van Vechten and Quentin Tarantino.
    Van Vechten sparked controversy when, in 1926 , he published
Nigger Heaven
, a novel about black life in Harlem. The title alone alienated many blacks, including some who knew the author personally. Van Vechten had, for example, selected some lines of poetry by his friend Countee Cullen to serve as the epigraph for his book, but when he told the poet about his proposed title, he turned, in Van Vechten's words, “white with rage.” 29 And soon their friendship ended. At an antilynching rally in Harlem, a protester burned a copy of
Nigger Heaven.
And in Boston, the book was banned.
    Van Vechten was well aware that the title would singe the sensibilities of many potential readers. Even his own father objected to it: “Your ‘Nigger Heaven’ is a title I don't like,” Charles Duane Van Vechten informed his son in 1925 . “I have myself never spoken of a colored man as a ‘nigger.’ If you are trying to help the race, as I am assured you are, I think every word you write should be a respectful one towards the blacks.” 30 Yet the younger Van Vechten persisted, emblazoning upon his novel a title that still sparks resentment.
    It should not be overlooked, however, that while many blacks condemned
Nigger Heaven
, others—including some of the most admired black intellectuals of the day— applauded it. Charles Chesnutt, the first black professional man of letters, praised Van Vechten in a letter, telling him that he hoped that the novel would “have the success which its brilliancy and obvious honesty deserve.” 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. Paul Robeson sent Van Vechten a congratulatory telegram that stated, in part, “ nigger heaven amazingin its absolute understanding and deep sympathy thanks for such a book .” Charles S. Johnson, editor
of Opportunity
, one of the key journals of the Harlem Renaissance, commented that he “wish[ed] a Negro had written it.” Along the same lines, novelist Nella Larsen mused, “Why, oh, why, couldn't we have done something as big as this for ourselves?” 31
    James Weldon Johnson, author of “Lift Evr'y Voice and Sing” (the “Negro National Anthem”), wrote an effusive review in which he declared that Van Vechten had paid colored people “the rare tribute of writing about them as people rather than as puppets.” 32 Later, in his autobiography, Johnson would assert that “most of the Negroes who condemned
Nigger Heaven
did not read it; they were estopped by the title.” Looking toward the future, he would conjecture that “as the race progresses it will become less and less