'"Show Boat" begins with the singing of that most reprehensible word – nigger – yet this is no coon song... immediately establishes race as one of the central themes of the play. This is a protest song, more ironic than angry perhaps, but a protest nonetheless. In the singers' hands, the word nigger has a sardonic tone... in the very opening, Hammerstein has established the gulf between the races, the privilege accorded the white folks and denied the black, and a flavor of the contempt built into the very language that whites used about African Americans. This is a very effective scene... These are not caricature roles; they are wise, if uneducated, people capable of seeing and feeling more than some of the white folk around them.