"Never meant to be derogatory"? Really? then what was it meant to be? Merely descriptive? then why are none of the white people characterized by their race? To be sure even black characters like Roxy refers to other blacks by the term, but note that it's usually if not always a derogatory reference such as when she rebuffs Jasper's flirting or puts Tom in his place by noting that his cowardice is the product of his "nigger blood." In these statements, she shows that she has absorbed the hierarchical assumptions that had long been conveyed by the practice of racially identifying blacks as those in white culture do. And by the way, the name "Nigger Jim" was broadcast rather influentially by Hemingway in his well-intended but egregious misreading of AHF. I suspect that the frequency of references to Jim with the racial designation included spiked after Hemingway formalized the practice in _The Green Hills of Africa_ (p. 22). --Larry Howe