Wednesday's Word
This post has been in the back of my mind for almost a month, ever since the Vermont Library Conference, where Joe Raiola's keynote was on "The Joy of Censorship."
Joe is one funny guy and if you are a librarian, writer, or lover of words and free speech, if you ever have a chance to see him, go. Unless you have a problem with profanity. Because Joe uses all those words that George Carlin famously could not say on the radio or TV. That's the whole point.
Joe went down the list, working them into a comic routine that evoked tidal surges of laughter. And then he got to what, because I'm not going to friends-lock this post, I'm going to call the "n-word."
Uncomfortable silence.
Joe went on to depict how a segment of African-Americans have reclaimed that world, and by the time he went on to say that it seems unlikely that what I'm going to call the "c-word" will ever be reclaimed by women in the same way, the relaxation in the room was almost palpable.
That wasn't the last time the "n-word" came up that day. In the afternoon I moderated a panel on "Provocative v. Gratuitous: The Challenge and Beauty of YA Materials and Recognizing Our Own Bias." In the discussion about bias, I mentioned what I had observed that morning. In doing so, there was a point at which I had to decide: Do I say the word or do I use the euphemism I'm using here?
I said it. Deliberately. For, I believe, the first time in my life.
It was uncomfortable, because I'm a female, Anglo-Scots Yankee of an age to remember the Civil Rights movement. I remember learning to change terminology from Negro to Afro-American, to black, to African American. I know the heavy, heavy baggage the "n-word" carries. It's not a word to ever utter lightly or casually, if you are someone like me. It's not a word I plan on uttering again, except, perhaps, in a context where the power of words is being discussed. On the other hand, I don't believe a single word should be so tabu that I dare not utter it. I'm not sure I want to give one word that much power.
The discussion grew even more interesting when an audience member asked a question about the censorship of Huck Finn, saying that she had read that the project came about because the redactor of the book had had a student who was so offended by Mark Twain's use of the "n-word" that she (the student) refused to read the book. The audience member's question was, Did not the alterations of the book make sense, if they were done for the purpose of making a classic accessible to a resistant audience?
The one-word answer is, "No!" The longer response that day was to explain that, to my mind, that student's resistance offered a "teachable moment." I would have set the book aside for a class period and have a conversation with the class about race and racial epithets and the historical context in which Mark Twain wrote Huck Finn, and then, if a particular student is still resistant, to offer her an alternative novel.
The discussion moved on from there, but the question niggled at me for days. Eventually I figured out that another one of the things that bothers me about this particular episode of censorship is word choice. Replacing the "n-word" with "slave" to my mind makes the situation worse, because it turns Jim's bondage into an unalterable condition, when the very reason he runs into Huck on the island is that he (Jim) is trying to become free.
The other, larger issue, of course, is whether Huck Finn should be a canonical text. It is dated--how many students will understand the faux pas that reveals Huck's true gender when he's disguised as a girl? (Does anyone these days know how to thread a needle, let alone how a girl threads a needle?) And if it does belong in the high school curriculum, wouldn't it be better to include it in a reading ladder?
Ultimately, though, the question this whole issue raises is one I mentioned earlier: How much power do we want to give a single word? By refusing to read this one novel because it features one particular word, this student is letting that one word control her reading. I, for one, am not about to let that happen.
And yes, that goes for any book with the "c-word." I might not like that word, but I'm also not going to refuse to read any book that contains it, at least, not on those grounds alone.
I'd like to know--How would you respond to the audience member's question?