Nixon, the Racial Slur, and Me
Language Log 2018-10-30
Summary:
Sammy Davis Jr. famously embraced Richard Nixon in 1972. (Photo: UPI)
I was recently listening to “The Hug Heard Round the World,” an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s always-interesting podcast, Revisionist History. The hug in question was applied by Sammy Davis Jr. to Richard Nixon in 1972, and it made such big news because Davis was an African-American entertainer and erstwhile civil-rights activist and Nixon was apparently no friend to blacks. In addition to being the first presidential candida...