The single most valuable piece of advice I have ever received from a professor on writing essays was: "Stay true to the author's intent." I come back to this thought often -- how guilty are we, as interpreters, to project our own feelings onto a text and imbue it with unintended meanings? There's a difference between making tenuous connections stronger versus creating theories with a personal agenda. On that note...
I've hope you've heard by now that the newest edition of Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Swayer" will be published without the 'n' word. In a rebuttal, the editor of this upcoming text, Auburn University English professor Alan Gribben says that he receives emails that people are outraged over his substitution "slave" but that people aren't willing to write the 'n' word. This, it seems, is his great 'aha' moment -- why aren't people who are upset with his removal of the word willing to shout it from the rooftops? This would be decent reasoning if only Gribben kept in mind that there is no context for using the word. "Huck Finn" and "Tom Swayer" both take place in very specific time periods which make sense for the word to be used. Context is the reason in which we still read books with heavily racialized and colonial overtones, like "Heart of Darkness" or Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury." Context is also a reason we have responses, such as Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" or Toni Morrison's "Beloved."
Race issues are difficult to address, but the reality is that it's synonymous with American history. We're a nation built on the blood of often unwanted immigrants. We are also a country in which the racial dynamics are truly unique -- and because of this, we should be proud, and respectful, of the progress we've made in accepting and celebrating differences. If we don't allow a time period to be accurately represented, how can we begin to remember it? Dialogue? Why do we want an easy way out when confronted with an opportunity to discuss racial dynamics in a classroom setting? It's so much easier to outright ban books if the message isn't aligned with a community's ethos -- but this! The way editors are now subtly changing the purpose of words and the meanings and importance that comes along with it is no longer a merely semantic issue. It's a question of the right to represent history truthfully and to honor a challenging topic.
tiffany
PS. Also, I think this Dizzee Rascal cover of "That's Not My Name" is a much more astute conversation on race than I could give here (also it's way more fun):
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