Nigger (racial slur)

In the English language, nigger is a racial slur directed at black people. In the United States, the term was historically applied to enslaved African Americans and has recently been partially reappropriated by some of their descendants as nigga

Quotes

Early use

• She is a foole, that dare not wash her face, because she would not have her husband thinke she paints it so she is a nigger, that dare not laugh, least her husbande shoulde thinke shee is lascivious.
  • Francis Meres, Palladis Tamia (London: P. Short, for Cuthbert Burbie, 1598), p. 131; adapting Plutarch, Moralia, Conjugalia Praecepta, 29

18th- and 19th-century United States

• Nigger in the woodpile.
  • Anonymous (1840–1850)

• I jumped aboard de telegraph,
    And trabbled down de riber,
  De lectric fluid magnified,
    And killed five hundred nigger.
  • Stephen Foster, "Oh! Susanna" (1848); often bowdlerised as 'chigger'

• Ten little nigger boys went out to dine;
  One choked his little self, and then there were nine.
  Nine little nigger boys sat up very late;
  One overslept himself, and then there were eight.
  Eight little nigger boys traveling in Devon;
  One said he’d stay there, and then there were seven.
  Seven little nigger boys chopping up sticks;
  One chopped himself in half, and then there were six.
  Six little nigger boys playing with a hive;
  A bumble-bee stung one, and then there were five.
  Five little nigger boys going in for law;
  One got in chancery, and then there were four.
  Four little nigger boys going out to sea;
  A red herring swallowed one, and then there were three.
  Three little nigger boys walking in the Zoo;
  A big bear hugged one, and then there were two.
  Two little nigger boys sitting in the sun;
  One got frizzled up, and then there was one.
  One little nigger boy living all alone;
  He got married, and then there were none.
  • Frank J. Green, "Ten Little Niggers" (1869), adapting "Ten Little Indians" (1868)

• It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger—but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither.
  • Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Ch. XV, spoken by Huck

• Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.
  • Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Ch. XVI, an "old saying" quoted by Huck

20th-century United States

• Things at the White House
    Looking mighty curious,
  Niggers running everywhere,
    White people furious.
  Niggers on the front porch.
    Niggers on the gable,
  Niggers in the dining room,
    Niggers at the table.
  Niggers in the siting room
    Making all the talk,
  Niggers in the ball room,
    Doing cake walk.
  Niggers in the east room
    Makes a mighty throng.
  Niggers in the music room
    Singing a coon song.
  Niggers in the hallway
    Taking off their wraps,
  Niggers in the billiard room
    Shooting game of craps.
  Niggers in the store room
    Packing 'way their plunder,
  Niggers in the bed room
    Snoring like thunder.
  Not a room in the White House
    Without niggers many,
  Baby in the nursery
    A nigger pickaninny.
  Nigger on the stairway
    With very much satiety,
  Nigger in the blue room
    Assembled for society.
  Niggers in the front porch,
    Niggers in the back.
  Niggers come in omnibus
    And niggers come in hacks.
  On they go to Washington
    With a mighty rush,
  Forty thousand niggers
    Getting in the push.
  • Anonymous, "Niggers in the White House" (1901), sts. 1–10
  • See Booker T. Washington and Teddy Roosevelt

• AFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

• “Othello with his occupation gone,” she teased.
  “Othello was a nigger,” I said.
  • Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929), Ch. XXXV

• Then I come down to Houston, I went to a bowling alley. I couldn't go bowling, there were no bowling balls. The people here throw 'em all in the sea, thought they were nigger eggs... thought they were nigger eggs.
  • Kinky Friedman, from a 1980 tape, as reported on the Burnt Orange Report, an Austin-based Democratic blog, in September 2006; quoted in Texas Weekly, vol. 23, no. 13 (18 September 2006), Online

• You fuckin' guys are acting like a bunch of fuckin' niggers! You work with niggers, huh? Just like you two, always sayin' they're gonna kill each other.
  • Reservoir Dogs (1990), spoken by Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi)

• When you came pullin' in here, did you notice a sign on the front of of my house that said "Dead Nigger Storage"?
  • Pulp Fiction (1994), spoken by Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino)

• There's black people, and there's niggers. And niggers have got to go. Every time black people wanna have a good time, ign'ant-ass niggers fuck it up.
  • Chris Rock, Chris Rock: Bring the Pain‎ (1996)

21st-century United States

• Blacks stayed at home during the civil rights march. Niggers are the ones that marched.
  • Kitty Kelley, quoting an unnamed town resident, Oprah: A Biography (New York, NY: Crown, 2010), p. 193

Outside the United States

• He never lost his appetite —
  He bigger grew and bigger;
  And proved, with every inch of height,
  A nigger is a nigger.
  • Henry Kendall, “My Piccaninny”, in The Australian Town and Country Journal (19 June 1880), p. 28, col. 4

• You are not even a nigger, you are an African.
  • Hotel Rwanda (2004), spoken by Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte)

Quotes about nigger

• I noticed that among this class of colored men the word "nigger" was freely used in about the same sense as the word "fellow," and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men.
  • James Weldon Johnson (anonymously), The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), Ch. VI; see nigga

• If the slur is mentioned in key court decisions, it should not be taboo in law schools.
  • Randall Kennedy and Eugene Volokh, "The case for quoting the n-word in university classrooms", The Washington Post (13 May 2021), Online

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Nigger on Wikipedia