Pop and African Americans

[Peter Richardson]

On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Joan Houston Hall wrote:

> The DARE entry for "nigger" has a pretty good treatment of the use of the
> word in a neutral or favorable way by Black speakers.  It's at sense B1d.

Joan's posting reminds me of the sometimes hair-raising discussion of
_nigger_ that took place on Oct. 28, 1997 on this list. (You all probably
remember the flap that attended the sudden discovery of Merriam-Webster's
entry.) I've condensed those email exchanges over the course of that day
(to be precise, 9:55 a.m. to 7:25 the next morning) for my students and
used the 4-page document in my Language Matters class each term, along
with a little handout aimed at helping the students frame the issues. It
works well.

Peter Richardson