What if Brown v. Board of Education was a Hate-Speech Case? Book Review of Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy

Abstract

Reviews a book by Randall Kennedy by the above title. Disputes the author's contention that nothing is inherently wrong with the word nigger and accuses the book of ignoring the term's odious history as well as the power of hate speech in general. Shows how ignoring these features can play into the hands of racists, both of the colorblind and the old-fashioned variety, while compounding the marginalization of its victims. Urges that courts pay more, not less, attention to the harms of hate speech.

Keywords: Hate speech, racial invective, freedom of speech, equality, critical race theory.