Summary

Being Black in America: Nigger. Again referring to the reader as a member of his congregation (“beloved”), the author refers to the deep implications of hatred in the use of the word “nigger”; describes the first time the word was used towards him when he was a child; and comments that for black men in general, it carried more implications than hatred. It meant, he suggests, and continues to mean, that as fathers, black men are unable to protect their children from the hatred and violence of the world. It also suggested, and continues to suggest, the historic, cultural, and political mechanisms that separated whites from blacks. “White racism was the government’s science project,” he says. “Bigotry was its nightly homework” (133).

The author also comments on how the reaction to the world, experienced by all black people, is embedded in their...