Review
"[Kennedy] can make [legal] decisions and reversed reversals into tense intellectual drama. . . . He's made his case: that this 'troublesome' word is only a word. And that words--like people--can always change."--"Newsweek
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"The best way to get rid of a problem is to hold it up to the bright light and look at all sides of it, and that's what Kennedy does in this book. He takes a lot of poison out of the word while he's doing it. . . . This is the way to get rid of words like 'nigger' and all the contemptible ideas that go with it."--Andy Rooney, "60 Minutes"
"Calm, correct, informative."--"The New York Observer"
"Kennedy's commitment to racial justice is plain, and so is his impatience with the subverting of empiricism by the theatrics of the underdog. . . . He frequently throws the cold water of common sense upon issues that are too often cloaked in glib histrionics."--"The New Republic"
Synopsis
Provides an analysis of the word "nigger" and its repercussions for, effect on, and place in American culture, and the use of the controversial word as a racial epithet and methods that can deprive the word of its destructive character.