YouSaid · the spoken record

Randall Kennedy

lines on the record: 168
first: 2023-05-24
most recent: 2023-05-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You're absolutely right. The origins of this book. I clearly remember I was at my office and I was thinking about lecture topics. And I get invited to give lectures from time to time And I was thinking, well, what might make for an interesting lecture? And all of a sudden, The word nigger popped into my mind. Now this is a word I've grown up with this word. I mean, there's never been a time in my life At least in my conscious life. In which Which this word's been absent. I mean, in my household, for instance, in my household My parents are black people. My parents were refugees from the Jim Crow South. I was born in the Deep South, South Carolina. In my household, I heard the word nigger used in every possible way. I heard it used as a slur. I also heard it used with respect to people who were praised Know my father, I clearly remember.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A word, a symbol in some context can be a slur, and some context doesn't have to be. So the whole idea of What's a slur? That's a complicated idea in and of itself.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no. I'm gonna resist this a little bit because the whole idea of Slurs. Slurs change Yankee was a slur. Yankee was a slur, and 18th century United States. Slur today. You know, New York Yankees, I'm a Yankee fan, I'm a Yankee queer. Queer. This is in my lifetime. There was a time that you queer And people would really run away from it. And that was a bad thing. And then, thank goodness. Gay Liberation Movement, Gay Liberation Movement basically, we're not going to run away from this. We're going to grab this, quote, slur. And we're going to affix it to ourselves. And we are going to repurpose it. Now the word queer is again, you know, can it be a slur? Yeah, it can be a slur. Doesn't have to be. And it seems to me that it's important for people to know about”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Implicitly, what I'm saying is that person distinguishes between things on an unjustifiable basis. And that's a bad thing. On the other hand, that person has discriminating taste. Oh, that means something very different. That means that the person differentiates in a way that shows that they understand the difference between excellent, good, and not so good. And we think that that's a good thing. So words can have different, you know, words can mean different things in different contexts. It seems to me that that's something that actually we ought to recognize. We ought to recognize and talk about.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah, I agree with what you say. Yes, words are powerful, words do matter. And so I am certainly not suggesting that people be lax. I'm not suggesting that people be irresponsible. It's precisely because words matter, however. that we need to be willing to face words and grapple with words and talk about words and talk about the history of words precisely because words matter and among other things it seems to me it's important to understand that words can mean different things in different contexts it's not the case that a word Means the same thing in every context. The word discriminating Sometimes it's a very bad thing. That person discriminates. And again, intonation of voice means something. If I say that person discriminates, and I'm obviously being disapproving.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But that's not what's going on. You don't have none of these are cases in which you have an individual who is a stranger to another individual, and this word just sort of comes out. No. What we have here is a class Involving a person who is a teacher. Interacting with students. Talking about subjects in which it would be perfectly understandable why this word would emerge as a subject of conversation. Now under those circumstances, it's somehow wrong for a teacher to utter this word, in my view. The answer is no. And I said that 20 years ago, I say it even more emphatically now.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Students get up, leave in a huff, report the teacher. There's some instances in which teachers have been under those circumstances have been disciplined. In my view, that's bad and people ought to say it's bad. It's bad pedagogically. And frankly, in many of these instances, it's not only bad, it's stupid. And I don't mind saying that. I think that some of these instances in which teachers have been disciplined, absolutely stupid. People say, well, the teacher used the word. Excuse me, use the word. It'd be one thing. It'd be one thing if a teacher looked at a student and called the student nigger. Get out of here, nigger. That'd be one, that'd be, you know, fine. Discipline. That's teacher. That's bad.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because the word nigger has come out of a teacher's mouth. Why? In a couple of cases recently, teacher would be reading a court opinion. The word appears in the court opinion. The teacher pronounces the word ah.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it seems to me that if you're a teacher and you want to have your students face the facts about American life, well, you've got to grapple with the word nigger. Now let me just quickly say, you know, teachers have a tough job. And if we're talking about students, of course there's a wide range of students. Am I saying that one ought to give my book to kindergartners? No. Kindergarteners are probably not ready for such a book. Third graders? Probably no. Not third grade. If we're talking, however, about people in the 10th grade, do I think the 10th graders can read my book? Yeah, sure, absolutely. 11th graders, 12th graders, people in college, there are people in college. There are people in college. There are people in law schools, teachers in law schools have been disappointed.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like Gregory used it to put up a mirror to American society and say, look at this word and look at the terrible way in which it's been used. We don't want you to look away. No, don't look away. No euphemism, no asterisk, no n word, no, nigger. Now we want you to look at that and we want to talk about that. James Baldwin. James Bull, there was a documentary. About James Baldwin, a couple years ago, highly lauded documentary, the title that was given in this documentary was I am not your Negro. That's not what James Baldwin said. Anybody can go to YouTube right now, take a look. James Baldwin said, I am not your nigger. And then he went on to talk about that. Well, you know, James Baldwin wasn't, again, he wasn't starting to cover up anything. He wanted people to face the facts of American life.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How does one explain that? How does one explain the way in which one explain Richard Pryor? I mean, Richard Pryor's best album is That Nigger's Crazy. Well, was Richard Pryor trying to put down black people? How does one explain that? One can only explain that by getting deeper into the word, by understanding that, yes, this is a word that has been used in a derogatory way. This is a word that has been used to put people down. This is a word that has been used to terrorize people. You got to know that. But you also have to know that this is a word that has also been put to other uses. There are artists, there are entertainers who have used this”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so they need to know about that as well. What are people doing? How does one explain The fact that Dick Gregory was a comedian activist friend of Martin Luther King Jr. a true activist. I mean, he had a very, he had a flourishing care as an entertainer that he abandons in order to struggle for racial justice throughout the United States and including the Deep South. How does one explain the fact that He wrote several memoirs, but his first memoir is called Nigger?”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it doesn't end there You have to know that. And if you know that, then that knowledge should equip you to be careful. It should equip you to know that the range of contexts in which this word appears. But again, it doesn't just end there because especially young people, you tell that to young people and they nod, they read, they understand that. But then, but then what? But then they turn on their radios and they turn on, you know, they listen to Spotify. They listen to some of their favorite entertainers. They listen to Dr. Dre. They listen to the ghetto boys. They listen to Snoop. And they listen to NWA. What do they hear? They listen to stand up comedians. They listen to Dave Chappelle. They listen to Cat Williams. What do they hear? They hear the word nigger or nigga. Being used in a lot of different ways.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's not been one case. There's not been one case that has come to my attention in which it was even remotely sensible for the teacher to be disciplined. And what I say is that number one. Frankly, I go through what I write is almost a synopsis of my book. Number one, this is an important word in American history. It is a word that is explosive. That's why people get so upset. It's a word that's volatile. It's a word that has typically been used in a terrible way. It's a word that is part of the soundtrack of racial terrorism in the United States. So people ought to know about this word. I mean, if you're interested in knowing the real history of the United States, if you're interested in knowing about lynching, if you're interested in knowing about the way in which black people have been terrorized in the United States, you need to know this word. You need to know that history. So you need to know why it is that people are upset about the word. But that's not.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It out to the teachers, hand it out to students. And there have been a number of teachers who've been suspended or worse because of that. Students will get upset, go home, tell their parents, their parents will storm to the school and say that this is, you know, this is terrible. The teacher is, quote, using the word nigger in an offensive way. And oftentimes administrators will basically abandon the teacher. And whenever this comes to my attention, I write the You know, superintendent of schools or are right the principal, or sometimes I'll write an opinion editorial piece for the local newspaper. But every year there are teachers who are disciplined for using my book. I had not anticipated that.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For using my book every year there are teachers who are suspended or who are fired because they will excerpt a chapter of my book, let's imagine a, and this is not, I'm not imagining things as has happened. A teacher is teaching, for instance, the Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The word nigger appears in that book over 200 times. The teacher, trying to be earnest, trying to be sensible, trying to be serious will excerpt a part of my book to acquaint students with the history of the word and maybe the history of controversy involving the use of the word in this particular novel. The teacher will give it out.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This book has generated a lot of controversy. I thought it would. It's probably It is certainly generated more. More different sorts of experiences than I had anticipated. So, for instance, I did not think that writing this book would prompt people to ask me to be an expert witness in cases. And over the past 20 years, I've been an expert witness in a number of different cases. I've been an expert witness in case in a murder case, in various cases of assault. I've been an expert witness in cases involving tort cases, intentional infliction of emotional distress. I've been an expert witness in a number of employment cases. I had not anticipated that, nor had I anticipated the extent to which people would get in trouble.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The word you're referring to is nigger. The book that you're referring to is nigger, the strange career of a troublesome word. The word dates back to the 16th, 17th century. It's got a long lineage, in other words. Latin basically Spanish, basically Nig, you know, black in various formulations. We don't know actually how the term nigger became A slur. So there were words that were close to in Igger that were used in various ways. For instance, Nigg was used. Niggur was used. And sometimes it was used in a way that seemed to be just purely descriptive. We do know that by the early 19th century it had become a slur. It had become a derogatory word about which people complained. But exactly how that came about not altogether clear.”
2023-05-24 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #379 – Randall Kennedy: The N-Word – History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source