A Harvard professor who wrote a book on the history of the “n-word” testified at “Fat Nick” Minucci’s Queens Supreme Court trial yesterday, and told jurors that nowadays, the term is both a “racial insult” and a “term of endearment.”
Randall Kennedy, who was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, was called by the defense to bolster the assertion that the 20-year-old high school dropout wasn’t being racist when he yelled “What up, n – – – – -,” before he allegedly beat a black man with a bat in Howard Beach.
The one-time Rhodes scholar was asked by Minucci’s lawyer Albert Gaudelli how the n-word is used today – particularly among those who listen to rap and hip-hop music.
“The word is used in a lot of different ways,” said Kennedy, who is black. “Sometimes it’s a racial slur. Sometimes it’s used as a term of endearment.”
There are instances when the n-word is used satirically or as a gesture of solidarity, he added.
“It’s used by all sorts of people – black, white and other groups, as well,” Kennedy said. “It’s sometimes used across racial lines.” He said the word is both “emotional” and “volatile,” and its meaning depends on the context.
Minucci is on trial for the June 29, 2005, attack on Glenn Moore, a black man who roamed the predominantly white Howard Beach community with two other African-American men. The heavyset teen is facing up to 25 years if convicted.
Prosecutor Mariela Herring, under cross-examination, told Kennedy to assume that a white person was complaining about a black person coming into a neighborhood to commit a crime. Also assume, she said, that this white person was told by another white friend that three blacks tried to rob him and they chased him down with a baseball bat and said “What are you f – – – ing n – – – – – doing in my neighborhood?”
“Would you say that’s a greeting?” Herring asked.
Gaudelli objected, and Judge Richard Buchter would not allow the witness to answer the question.
Outside court, Kennedy said he was too uninformed to give an answer.
“At what point was this stated and what else was going on? Do these people know one another?” he said. “[There’s] a whole list of things I’d want to know to come up with an impression of what was going on.”
Even though he was a defense witness, Kennedy said, “I wasn’t championing anybody’s cause.”
Also yesterday, prosecutors announced they were streamlining the 19-count indictment by dismissing five duplicate charges to make it easier for the jurors to decide Minucci’s fate.