Letter to the editor, the New Yorker, June 17, 1996:

One day, I met a little black girl and her puppy in front of the grocery, and I asked her the dog's name. "Nigger," she said. I was stunned. "Who gave him that name?" I asked. "My daddy." Not only did that little girl's daddy have a wicked sense of humor, but he was also a great tactician: I was just a neighbor, but in my white skin I represented a power structure, and so I could not address that man's dog.

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