Free Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy Page B

a striking example of his revolt against bigotry is his piece “Only a Nigger,” in which he speaks in the voice of an apologist for a lynching:
    Ah, well! Too bad, to be sure! A little blunder in the administration of justice by southern mob-law: but nothing to speak of. Only “a nigger” killed by mistake—that is all.… But mistakes will happen, even in the conduct of the best regulated and most high-toned mobs, and surely there is no good reason why Southern gentlemen should worry themselves with useless regrets, so long as only an innocent “nigger” is hanged, or roasted or [] to death now and then.… What are the lives of a few “niggers” in comparison with the impetuous instincts of a proud and fiery race? Keep ready the halter, therefore, o chivalry of Memphis! Keep the lash knotted; keep the brand and the faggots in waiting, for prompt work with the next “nigger” who may be suspected of any damnable crime! 46
     
    Wallace, I suppose, would read this as an endorsement of lynching. But obviously it is intended to be just the opposite. The same holds true for
Huckleberry Finn
, which Twain designed to subvert, not to reinforce, racism.
    I am not ruling out criticism of the novel. Perceptive commentatorshave questioned its literary merits. 47 It is undoubtedly true, moreover, that regardless of Twain's intentions,
Huckleberry Finn
(like
any
work of art) can be handled in a way that is not only stupid but downright destructive of the educational and emotional well-being of students. To take a contemporary example, the producers of
Mississippi Burning
intended their film to carry an antiracist message, but that did not prevent it from contributing inspiration to a wayward youth who, in 1990 , burned crosses outside the residence of a black family in St. Paul, Minnesota, in an effort to frighten them into moving. 48
    Such concerns, however, are different from the one I am addressing. I am addressing the contention that the presence of
nigger
alone is sufficient to taint
Huckleberry Finn
or any other text. I am addressing those who contend that
nigger
has
no
proper place in American culture and who thus desire to erase the N-word totally, without qualification, from the cultural landscape. I am addressing parents who, in numerous locales, have demanded the removal of
Huckleberry Finn
from syllabi
solely
on the basis of the presence of the N-word—without having read the novel themselves, without having investigated the way in which it is being explored in class, and without considering the possibilities opened up by the close study of a text that confronts so dramatically the ugliness of slavery and racism. I am addressing eradicationists who, on grounds of racial indecency, would presumably want to bowdlerize or censor poems such as Carl Sandburg's “Nigger Lover,” stories such as Theodore Dreiser's “Nigger Jeff,” Claude McKay's “Nigger Lover,” or Henry Dumas’ “Double Nigger,” plays suchas Ed Bullins’ “The Electronic Nigger,” and novels such as Gil Scott-Heron's
The Nigger Factory.
    A third category of misguided protest involves cases in which insulted parties demand excessive punishment. Consider what happened in 1993 at Central Michigan University (CMU).
    Keith Dambrot was in his third year as the school's varsity men's basketball coach. 49 CMU also designated him as an “assistant professor;” presumably his subject was basketball. At halftime during a game against Miami University of Ohio, Dambrot tried to focus and inspire his team, made up of eleven blacks and three whites. He asked his players for permission to use with them a term that they often used with one another: the N-word. They nodded their assent, at which point Coach Dambrot said, “We need to be tougher, harder-nosed, and play harder.… We need to have more niggers on the team.” 50 He then admiringly referred to one white member of the team as a nigger and went around the locker room categorizing the other