“Huckleberry Finn” has the word nigger in it!
Did that headline get your attention? Good! Yes, it’s true, the book “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has the word nigger in it! Now, before you go nuts and yell “RACISM” on me, finish reading my post…
A couple of weeks or so ago, I opened up the weekend edition of USA Today and read an article entitled School apologizes after ‘Finn’ lesson backfires. After reading it, I was pissed. Go read the article and maybe you’ll see what I mean.
In a nutshell, a teacher was preparing the class to read “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by going over various racial slurs in the book. One particular student, a black student, was offended by one of the words that the teacher had written on the blackboard. The word was (you guessed it!) nigger. [And, no, I am not going to substitute this word for "the N-word" or the like! A word is just a word and doesn't have any meaning unless it's put into context. More on this in a second.]
The teacher “badgered” Mohamed after denying his request to remove the slur from the chalkboard or change it to the “N-word,” and she continued to say the word during class, said his mother, Tunya Mohamed. The teen said that he felt singled out when the teacher asked whether the word offended him and that she told him, “‘It hurts, doesn’t it?”‘
Now, I’m going to give the kid the benefit of the doubt cause I can understand how a young kid can feel singled out when they are the only black kid in the class, especially given the subject matter. However, I don’t think the teacher was being maliced and pointing a finger at him. I think she was merely making him and everyone else in the class understand that these slurs can hurt people if taken out of the wrong context.
But wait! There’s more:
Birdville Superintendent Stephen Waddell agreed to issue a written apology to the teen and his family and arrange sensitivity training for faculty, said Thomas Muhammad, spokesman of a group called Coalition to Stop the N-Word.
Coalition to Stop the N-Word? Wha??? Sensitivity training? Are they serious?
So the school officials, the student, his parents and members of the coalition have a meeting, the book is removed from the class, the kid enrolls in a different English class, and all is well. Right? Wrong!
“We are here today to say we will not tolerate the N-word being used by any educators anywhere in any school district throughout our region or the state of Texas,” said Ron Price, a Dallas school board member who attended the meeting. “It’s critical that we examine all of our textbooks to ensure that the language is proper and that the language is not being used to abuse any child in any public school.”
This is taking the issue way overboard. What next? Are we going to remove the word bitch too from every textbook and novel? Cause my wife doesn’t like being called that and she certainly won’t want her children to be exposed to that word! Hell, why stop there! Might as well bring back book burning while we’re at it!
Look, you can’t remove every stinky word from every textbook or novel a student might read; that just isn’t any common sense. Teachers don’t need any sensitivity training and students don’t need baby sitting when it comes to the words they could potentially read or hear. There just isn’t any sensitive way of exposing a student to slur words.
“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a part of American history. Like it or not, white people used to refer to black people as niggers. As far as I’m concerned the teacher did the right thing. She wrote all the slur words, including nigger, on the black board and said, “Here are the words you’re going to see in this book and here’s what they meant during the 1800’s”. There are plenty of teacher’s guides and comments about this very thing. As Minnie Phillips on Time.com says:
Thirty years after first teaching the novel in my American literature class at Webster Groves High School in suburban St. Louis, Mo., I’ve decided the novel is not about race but about freedom.
Does this book really call for any special attention? A word in and of itself isn’t bad. It’s the racist son-of-a-bitch who uses the word that you should really be worried about. But this book isn’t about race…it’s about freedom and it’s a part of our history. I think our students can handle it. History is history. Get over it!
January 29th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Hells yea
Ive just finished reading this book for english and my teacher was doing just the opposit. She used slave everytime the word nigger came up and it made me mad that an english teacher could not bring herself to say a word. I hear it plenty of times outside of class among the black community in my school, but once we get to class its all hush hush, there is no such thing as the word nigger. Get over it, its a part of history humans must face. Its one of our many flaws that we must see so we are better able to change our ways for the future.
Its just a word get over it.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Thanks for the comment, James! And you’re absolutely right. I think the worst thing teachers can do is avoid the issue by attempting to desensitize students. In doing so all you do is cause more problems by enabling people to get pissed over something that shouldn’t be that big of a deal to begin with. George Carlin had one of the best stand-up routines about this and, although it was humorous, there is an obvious truth to what he said:
February 25th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
oh my, where is this world coming to? why? I ask why? why must there be so much racism? The anti na does not back you… We believe in all fairness that that boy should have not been singled out in that classroom. but we understand your thinking so let us correct it. We are professional when it comes to racism. The actions were racist since the boy was singled out, not the use of the word. No racial words should have been brought up at all to keep the peace. So please do not drag on this story, let it die along with all of the hatred attached, and relax and focus on how you can stop racism. Whether it be blacks being racist to whites, or whites being racist to blacks. (or any race for that matter) Please join us in the fight against racism! join us now and we will arm you!!!
VISIT http://WWW.FREEWEBS.COM/ANTINAUSA
Its in your future, we feel the bravery, join us and bring attention to all races, the antinausa. Thank You
(The ANTINA [ANAP] is a secret underground program designed to stop the National Alliance)
February 25th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I decided to allow this comment for the simple reason that I don’t believe in censoring anyone with an opposing viewpoint. Problem is that there are some flaws to this person’s opposition. Here’s a quote off the Anti NA website from a speech entitled “Hopes For A More Perfect Union (even though its far from)” by John Maneson:
This person is a member of Anti NA and claims to want to end racism, get people to work together and fight for what they believe in, fight for peace, and…umm…fight till the death? Kill the mother fuckers that are the National Alliance? Talk about context!
What I am talking about here is the fact that so many books, TV shows, movies, and other forms of media have stories about racism. As such, they use words that within a certain context denote racism. Are we to believe that the only people who can use these words are the writers and actors themselves? Do we not have a right to discuss these things in the open? This is history we’re talking about! If everyone was required to shutup about it and “let it die” then we would also be required to burn every copy of Huckleberry Finn and every copy of the movie Schinder’s List, just to name a few.
Yes, words are powerful. But it’s not just the words themselves that have the power. A word in and of itself has no real power. Even a loaded gun is essentially powerless if it just sits there. It’s not till someone picks it up and puts their finger on the trigger till becomes a very powerful weapon. The wielder of a hurtful word is the one with the power. The context of the word, where they decide to aim it, is what denotes whether the word is good or bad.
Now, I don’t know if the person who gave this speech was kidding or not, but saying that you want to kill a group of people…that’s a pretty powerful thing to say. Makes saying the word “nigger” to a school kid while talking about Huckleberry Finn not seem so bad. That kind of talk goes completely against what Dr. King’s vision and philosophy were. You don’t fight racisim by aiming to destroy your enemies. You face your enemies, understand them, love them, and talk about it. What you preach could damn near be considered reverse discrimination, which is something I hate almost as much as racism. It’s ignorant and stupid, plain and simple.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Thank you so much for this. I hate the use of the word “nigger” in hateful context. But “Huck Finn” is not one of those hateful things. Mark Twain (Sam Clemens) was just using an epithet that he grew up with. An epithet can be positive, negative or neutral. I don’t know why some people call for this book to be banned. If teachers would just address the issue of hurtful words with the proper amount of sensitivity most of this could be avoided. People may say this book is racist but I fire back that Mark Twain wasn’t sugar-coating slavery. He was embracing it for the evil that it is. Harriet Beecher Stowe also addressed this in her book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” My english teacher is guilty of trying to get around the word. She’ll never say “nigger” and even reprimanded me when I was discussing the book and mentioned the word. She threatened me with a detention, so I shut up. I went to talk to my principal about it, but he wouldn’t even bring up the subject; instead he asked me how I was doing in school. It saddens me what people will deny to avoid the truth. The truth is this: just because you don’t want to accept something, doesn’t mean it goes away! I’d like to tell everyone that this book is not racist; it WOULD be racist if Twain hadn’t addressed the issue of slavery head on. Twain was a great and wise man who spent a lot of time trying to speak to people about slavery without being blatantly obvious about it. If he had been obvious, no one would’ve read his book. I sympathize with all those ignorant people who think something is racist because it has racial slurs in it. Read more into it, you might find that it’s very accepting.