niggerskin

A black person's skin.

A curious, throbbing, impersonal force flowed through me and around me in an unstemmable tide. It was in the music, in the soft, soft niggerskins, in the pale whiteskins.

Those with nothing to hock could always sell their loved one's hide to a tannery for the niggerskin trade....

A black person.

The voices had begun to circle silently and secretly and purposefully. “You're from Jap-pan pan pan niggerskin, and you made Pearl Harbor where we got you. Rat-ta-tat-tat!”

So are many of the quiet, orderly scenes in the school's halls. Children come back from recess on the run, pushing and shoving. One child three days in a row yells, “Niggerskins, niggerskins,” at another who is foreign-born.