This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 21, 2011 - I recently was invited to speak at Metro Academic and Classical High School about theremoval of the "n-word" from Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" and how such a move reflects changes in America's views on slavery and race.
I was extremely impressed by the students I met. The International Baccalaureate students (Judith Gainer, director) were engaged and stepped up as organizers and facilitators of the event. Kennedy Stomps, a senior, was professional to the point that I was unsure whether a staff member or a student was contacting me.
I think it's great when institutions (e.g., schools, workplaces, churches, etc.) take a current event and foster dialog around the issue. So, hats off to Metro High School and its willingness to shed light on how a specific current event can have broader implications. Below are a bit of my thoughts.
For those who are not familiar with the issue, Professor Alan Gribben, a Twain scholar from Auburn University in Alabama, has edited Mark Twain's classic to replace the controversial n-word word (which occurs 219 times in the original version) with "slave," "Injun Joe" with "Indian Joe," and "half-breed" with "half-blood." Of note is the fact that the controversy centers mostly around the n-word and less on these latter slurs that have been edited. Gribben's rationale is as follows:
"For nearly 40 years I have led college classes, bookstore forums, and library reading groups in detailed discussions of "Tom Sawyer "and "Huckleberry Finn" in California, Texas, New York and Alabama, and I always recoiled from uttering the racial slurs spoken by numerous characters, including Tom and Huck. I invariably substituted the word 'slave' for Twain's ubiquitous n-word whenever I read any passages aloud. Students and audience members seemed to prefer this expedient, and I could detect a visible sense of relief each time, as though a nagging problem with the text had been addressed."
In deconstructing his reasoning, I believe we can see our nation's attitude toward race relations clearly reflected. Race is perceived as a "nagging problem": Something to be rid of, to be remedied. Embarrassing. To be avoided if possible. Relief occurs when it is sidestepped. I don't think we should vilify Gribben or the people who are relieved by the omission. Their actions and reactions are merely symptomatic of the larger issue: That we have difficulty talking about race. I think we should challenge ourselves as a nation to acknowledge that the omission of the n-word lets us off the hook somewhat.
Root of the Problem
My opinion is that the removal of the word is less important than that the fact that the word "needed" to be omitted. I contend that the controversy is less over the n-word and more over our discomfort with our nation's history.
It's not about Tom Sawyer or Mark Twain. It's about us and our collective inability to talk about race. As sociologist Alan Johnson succinctly states, "The trouble we cannot talk about is the trouble we can do nothing about."
It would be much easier to forget that slavery happened, that we counted slaves as two-thirds of a person, that we legislated segregation, that our Supreme Court denied citizenship to those who were not white, that we federally mandated housing discrimination, and so on than to acknowledge head on the inequities we sanctioned and continue to see manifested in our society. Therefore, from my perspective, the removal of the n-word is reminiscent of our attempt to "clean up" the mess of our past in hopes of if it being forgotten or being seen as less brutal. Is the language in the novel offensive? Yes. But is the general depiction of life during slavery accurate? Yes.
History at Arms Length
The context of full histories is important. Without it, we are at risk of not only repeating our mistakes but also not being able to fully grasp where we are today. It is not about being PC or tiptoeing around history. It's about maintaining records of the realities of our past. And that is why I believe that Twain's novel (should it be chosen) should be read in its fullness with a thorough discussion of the time and space. If done appropriately, that discussion will not serve as a green light for others to use the term, because it is in context; it will not serve as a means to demean African Americans present day, because it is in context; it will not be used as a tool to make Whites feel guilty, because it is in context.
Reading the text could even be a great jumping off point for comparing how we have progressed and the ways in which the disparities I mentioned and more continue to plague us as a nation.
Consistently, students expressed their desire to read the uncensored text. They felt that being presented the censored text would be frustrating, an assumption that they couldn't handle the depth of the original (kudos to the faculty of Metro for stepping out to allow students the space to fully own and facilitate the dialog).
There are always going to be those who, for whatever reason, are scared to approach the topic of race and the historical complexities present in the novel. My suggestion would be to choose another book that represents the playfulness and mischievousness of youth without the racial baggage. If the students of Metro are any indication, students are eager to be challenged and are open to learning about the many layers and historical context of the texts they encounter.
Kira Hudson Banks, Ph.D., is assistant professor of psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. The native of Edwardsville is a regular contributor to the Beacon.