Why it's so hard to talk about the N-word

Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the meaning that words take on within a particular context. He demonstrates that, when it comes to the N-word and semantics, African Americans are routinely held to a double standard.

Asim’s history teaches that the pervasive n-word is as old as American itself. He takes readers back 400 years by exploring Thomas Jefferson as the source of our enduring image of "the N-word" as a "a shiftless child-man with huge appetites and stunted self control." Asim uncovers the threads of white supremacist ideology embedded in American culture from Jefferson to LBJ and beyond.

Kennedy traces the origins, connotations and controversies around the N-word. He answers America’s most pressing question about it; namely, should black people be able to use the N-word? Should there be legal ramifications for responding to its use with violence? Should it cost the speaker his or her job? From the Jim Crow South to contemporary pop culture, Kennedy makes a compelling case for challenging the attitudes and legal framework of our society when it comes to racial slurs.

Last year, the BackStory podcast produced an episode on the history of profanity in America. In this episode, Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor joins the BackStory team for a conversation about the history of the N-word and its use in African American communities.

A black English professor in Burlington, Vermont details her experience teaching African American literature to an all-white group of students in the fall of 2004. Bernard navigates the meaning of the N-word and identity as she moves between the classroom, a press tour, meetings with fellow faculty and life with her white husband.