Friday, January 23, 2009

I's Gots a lotta things tuh say bout dis

So I'm currently taking Adolescent Literature, so for every class I'm basically reading... (or claiming to have read in some cases,) books that as a high school teacher I will be teaching - Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, Chocolate War... etc.
So today we were reading Huck Finn, and during our conversation about it... we gradually got into the debate about how it's censored and excluded from curriculum for its... about 200x's use of the word nigger.
This really annoyed me... actually most debates about word censoring annoy me.
If you don't like the word, if it makes you uncomfortable... or makes you flinch, don't read the book... That's a starter, not happy with it... put it down, I'm sure Mark Twain can afford the loss.
But really, I have so many feelings on this topic... I can't organize them properly so excuse me if I go on a rant.
It's funny how a great piece of literature, which causes a person to think, and which a student can get so much out of is put on trial for the use of a word.
But you turn on a radio station, buy a rap CD and you'll hear the word thrown around meaninglessly... oh parson me, they change the ER to an A in the end and it doesn't imply the EXACT same word AT ALL.
Seriously people...
That's one strike against it.
It's either okay in all forms, or none at all... don't be hypocrites and say one's fine and another isn't.
So what, Mark Twain is white and Rappers who use it aren't, guess what... he used it in an intellectual, historical fashion... depicting the past, using the language they used, and they use it in a gangsta streetz fashion... which side would you rather take?
Then of course we can take it further and say, well... what else offends people.
You can't just let the argument stand for one person or group, you have to allow fairness to any and all persons/groups that find something offensive in literature.
So people get offended by any word, idea, concept... something completely outside the text that they somehow associate with it and get upset about.... they now have reason to ban that from curriculum as well.
It'd be complete nonsense, before you know it... every piece of literature would be off the market for containing some form of - racism, sexism, intolerance... something like abortion in a book would get it taken off.
If we took books off the market for offending people, every piece of gay literature would be taken out of the classrooms for making homophobic students/ or students with homophobic parents uncomfortable.
It's just not justified.
You can't completely ignore that a work has so much depth, and so much can be gained from it just because you disagree with an idea... or word in it.
It's straight up ignorant...

AND I'm not trying to get into the N word debate, I think it's so stupid... a word can only have as much power as you give it... and we can continue to ruin the career of any white man who stumbles and lets loose the horrible slur in any kind of public forum, while rappers throw it into their songs as filler and get more money... whatever, I don't wanna get into it.

But to deny people such a rich piece of literature, because it uses the word in a completely sensible and meaningful way is plain stupid.
If you're a parent who's fighting to get it taken out of classrooms... you're stupid
you're probably not even smart enough to raise a child.
Whatever, cry about a word... but feel free to completely miss the purpose of the story... the history of the word, and anything else one would gain from sitting down and reading a book.

2 comments:

Erd Tird Mans said...

Check out "Nigger" by Randall Kennedy. I'd lend it to you, but I still don't have "Dune" back.

The Flint Scott said...

Hey... hey... hey... chill out man you're the one who lives far away and always makes unexpected appearances.
You'll get it back one day
it's in the same exact condition you gave it to me in...
I still haven't read it actually... but I did pick up my own copy at a thrift store... but one day...