George Elliott Clarke teaches African-Canadian literature at U of T. His latest book is I & I (Goose Lane, 2009), a ‘teenage’ poem-novel.
An English Prof in the “New South,” shy about uttering the N-word even in university, sought a remedy – and now a U.S. publisher will shortly release a new edition of the 1884 American classic Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), in which the word “slave” replaces “nigger” 219 times.
The reaction to his amendment is hysteria: how dare anyone tamper with Twain’s masterpiece, in which a white boy gradually realizes the worth of a black man, all the while describing – or denigrating, or defining – him as a “nigger”?
But lest we forget, Twain’s novel is not the only grade school book that occasions disputes over the N-word: cue Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird (1960). In that case, too, black parents who object to having their young exposed to the English-class usage of a racist epithet face scorn from those who deem such complaints idiotic cries for “censorship.”
No matter. It’s almost an annual rite in Ontario that a school is asked not to teach Twain or Lee, at least not while black kids are present, and then the youths and their parents (and the compliant school) are harangued as “book-banning” dolts.
Indeed, some think black kids should tolerate the reckless – feckless – use of the N-word, a historical term of abuse, in Grade 5 or Grade 10. If black elders protest, they’re castigated for inhibiting freedom of speech.
Such arguments are crazy. Would minors from any other identifiable minority be obliged to accept the pronouncement of noxious insults, now more or less legitimized by their presence on the blackboard, the computer screen or a teacher’s lips?
One might argue that the study of timeless texts overrides all such social sensitivities. Yet if the classic in question were rich with homophobic or misogynist or anti-Semitic prejudice, or ethnically abusive terms (compose your own list), could we honestly say that it should be listed as mandatory reading regardless of the age of the learner?
If not, then why is “nigger” deemed an okay slur for grade-school English classes to absorb? Is it because we want to teach black youth – and their peers – that such is the lot of black people, that we are a powerless (or disempowered) minority?
(Currently, school authorities are investigating charges that some Jarvis Collegiate students have hurled the word “faggot” plus projectiles at Gay Village residents. This proves dehumanizing terms are precisely that, and should be treated in school like obvious weapons.)
The solution is neither censorship nor book banning. For one thing, classics like Huckleberry Finn, the King James Bible and Shakespeare’s plays render ridiculous all attempts to “correct” their language. As for banning, the idea is ludicrous. If not teaching a book is tantamount to prohibiting it, then most books are so proscribed. (For instance, if a school chooses not to teach Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita – a supreme novel – in Grade 10, does it mean the text can’t be read elsewhere?)
Then again, the fine 1899 children’s tale Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman, was in fact banned from Toronto schools in 1956 thanks to black protest. (Those who accuse black parents of censorship today should, to be consistent, demand reinstatement of the book.)
Yet intellectually, “nigger” has its defenders. African-American Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy, in Nigger: The Strange Career Of A Troublesome Word, catalogues its status in Americana, pop culture and civil liberty jurisprudence and advises us not to overreact to its irritating eruptions. That argument is fine, I think, for adults, but not for grade school pupils who may lack the smarts to read the word in context and may also lack teachers knowledgeable about slavery’s history.
Moreover, it is essential that educators in our multicultural, multiracial and multi-faith society exercise due caution in designing curricula. No minority group whose tax dollars also support our system ought to see their children subjected to the teaching of works that have the effect of diminishing their self-esteem, even if such is unintentional.
One would think this argument unnecessary in Toronto, where far too many African-Canadian youths drop out of high school and where anti-bullying strategies are de rigueur. (Surely, wanton use of the N-word in schoolyard taunts and jeers constitutes harassment, but this would be difficult to police if a school has in essence “licensed” the use of the word.)
Can’t we reserve abusive texts for classes where readers are mature enough to appreciate their context and consequences? Altering problematic terms is, frankly, silly. Yet it is a subtle violence to ask black youth to attend classes where some junior white supremacist may feel empowered to say, “Yo, niggers, check my freedom of speech!”
But maybe we’d rather applaud the wielding of the N-word in class than see African-Canadian youth achieve, excel, graduate and assume the sociopolitical and financial governance of this society.
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