Senate Racism in Literature and Pegagogy

Over the past couple months, I've found myself systematically reading just about every book that I "read" as part of my English curriculum. I put "read" in quotes because through my final three years of high school I was undiagnosed clinically depressed (because of my parents' divorce, among other things) and I basically slept walk through those three years, barely graduating, and my only achievement, as it were, was not to commit suicide, which I was contemplating daily.

My endeavor most recently brought me upon To Kill a Mockingbird. It's brilliant, of course, but as I read it I found myself feeling quite ambivalent, to say the least, about the fact that we had read it as a class during sophomore year. It's not a "racist book", of course, but it's set in a deeply racist milieu, and the n-word and n-lover are used pervasively throughout the book in the most appallingly casual fashion. I kept envisioning two scenarios in particular in my head: First, dozens of white eyes--consciously or unconsciously--repeatedly darting to the handful of black students in the class whenever these words are used, and said students possibly finding themselves feeling like exhibits in a zoo. Second, white chuckleheads getting, and enjoying, a visceral thrill by using said words during class read-aloud sessions.

Now, the other side of this argument is probably that not reading this particular book because it forces us to confront our racist past and how it still effects us today is itself a cowardly, racist act of historical whitewash, but my concern here isn't at all with teaching the book, period, but rather with what the appropriate age to do so in a classroom setting might be. Perhaps I'm just extrapolating too much from my own sordid high school experience, but I think H.L Mencken's famous quote could probably be amended to "nobody ever went broke overestimating the immaturity, cruelty, and stupidity of the American teenager" and lose none of its validity.

Thoughts on this from people smarter than me?

(One thing I should note: Because of my noted apathy, I can't even say affirmatively whether the particular copies of the books we used softened the language, so perhaps it's a moot point with regard to my school specifically, but I think even so the general dynamic makes for an interesting topic)

 

How are you feeling now?

 

One of my high school english teachers used the phrase "African American gentlemen/lady" whenever the n word was in literature.

 

Well, that's probably fine in one-off settings, but one of the main themes of this particular book is how Atticus feels compelled to maintain his own integrity and teach his children to do the same even when the rest of their entire society hates them for it. Repeatedly using such an anti-septic term in this particular work would effectively destroy the transmission of that.

 

I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of forcing someone, especially a child, to say a word they are uncomfortable with saying, especially a word like the n-word. I don't know why your teachers insisted on that. Weird.

 

I thought you were going to a go a very different direction with this. I'm largely okay with incidental usages of like in Mockingbird or Huck Finn. While one does have to guard against the dynamics you mentioned, as well as against desensitization, it's authentic to the period the author is trying to invoke, and it's not meant maliciously.

By contrast, there are a number of true and "modern" classics that never use such language but make a far more sustained assault on minorities and marginalized groups. The Ur example is, of course, Heart of Darkness, which Achebe points out depicted Africans as pretty worthless and subhuman while decrying the practice of colonialism. But you can see it in plenty of other things, too. For instance, in my opinion Ken Kesey goes to some pretty weird places in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest with all the passages focusing on the extreme blackness of the janitorial staff and the contrast between their skin color and uniforms. If I could only eliminate one sort of thing or the other, I would much rather excise the "I don't think much of black people" editorializing than passing but objectionable period references that, in all likelihood, students of color have already been called in a derogatory fashion before in any case.

 

Honestly we read Mockingbird in the sixth grade in my school system and we almost never read anything that wasn't a play out loud (Class time was instead devoted to discussing core concepts, themes, etc. for a given chapter) so it never came up. I do remember reading part of an MLK speech out loud in elementary school and feeling insanely awkward because of the use of the word "negro." It prompted some laughter because of my fumbling around it, but fortunately my teacher pointed out that it's okay for a word to make you feel uncomfortable, as long as you remember why the word is being used.

So that's pretty much been my attitude ever since. As Wocky points out there are other, bigger issues with the English canon anyway.