While reading a Kara Walker profile in “W”…
(It bears noting that, though the mainstream media has used “the n word” instead of “nigger” since the O.J. Simpson trial, Walker appears to find such editing a naive nicety. In a public talk with New York Times art critic Roberta Smith in January, Walker boldly spoke the word and at one point noted—on the off chance that someone in the audience had been asleep—“I’ve said ‘nigger’ twice now.” Later in the month, Walker explains that she is interested both in taboos and in “how a word can not just touch a person but take a person back in time and create a connection with past uses of the word.” Because she’s known for using the word in such forums—and in her work—she adds that when she doesn’t there’s an “expectation of rage that’s left hanging there.”)
History Girl: Kara Walker’s art mines the past to tell a very different story.
