| Sumario: | This article discusses the author's experiences teaching the 1993 novel "Wolf Whistle" by Lewis Nordan to college students, and how the book's use of vulgar racial and sexual language can facilitate more open discussions of race in the United States. The objection of white students to the sexual vulgarity in the book, and the objection of African American students to the racial vulgarity, are contrasted, and the author likens the unwritten rules of racial discourse in U.S. society to the delaying tactic of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate. The ways Nordan's book gets around this "filibuster" in its allusions to the 1955 murder of African American Emmett Till are then discussed.
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