Oh boy. Peggy mentioned something sure to get my “alternative” up. Specifically, censoring books read in school.
That just makes me crazy, folks. She was talking about the problem that comes up every few years where somebody gets bent out of shape because their precious little one has to read Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. They get upset because the kid has to read about folks who blatantly and casually used the dreaded ‘N’ word. A word I myself despise and refuse to use because of it’s obvious racism and callous disregard for a group of people who just happen to have more pigment in their skin than I do.
So why am I NOT on the side of those wanting these books with that horrid word banned? Because, my friends, I want it remembered and remembered well exactly WHY that word is so detestable. Those stories Twain wrote were written in an age when that word really was bandied about as unflinchingly as we today say “Hey, y’all!” It was to the people of that time, that place, and that situation the word used to indicate a specific group of people. What those two books also make clear is that in that time, place and situation that specific group of people were not just second class citizens but actually considered by some to be little more than animals. The contrast between what is so accurately portrayed in those books and what exists today is a lesson we all need to learn. Along with the eye opening realization that we still have so freaking far to go!
Yes, seeing that word and any other racial epithet in print is shocking. I’m not even sure I could read those two books out loud without stumbling and a blush or two. The blush would be because I remember my grandparents and parents using that very word, without a seconds thought or hesitation, just as the characters in the book use it.
Other racial epithets, applied to various other races, are equally insulting and socially wrong in my opinion so I will not mention them here, except to point out a simple fact.
If I, as a writer, chose to write something set in the World War Two American South I would have to use not only the N word but the K word, the S word and the J word. Why? Because in that time and that place during that war those words were used. The N word was a hold over from our past and was used to keep the chains of slavery well oiled. The K, S and J words were epithets used against our enemies of the time. Just as today every one thinks they know who you refer to when you say (please excuse the terms) rag head, or camel jockey. I put it to you my friends that these words are also offensive and belittle those who use them more than they belittle those they are hurled against.
However! Those two are used in this time and age. If I wrote a book about today it might well contain a character who used those last two epithets vehemently and with scorn, but avoided the N word.
Should such a book be banned in some future school just because a child of that ethnic group might read it?
No, it should not! And not just because I wrote it! But for the same reasons we should never even consider banning such books as those written by Mark Twain (who was a way better writer than I can ever be!) or any other that accurately presents a picture of our past. Those books can teach us where we have been, the mistakes we have made and show us the road we still need to travel. A road that will only end when we all finely realize there is only one race on this tired old planet. At least it's only one race until we discover that the whales and dolphins are indeed as intelligent as we. (They may be smarter, I think. They aren't polluting us all to death!)
We call that one race “Human,” and it is as beutifully varied in it's skin tones as it is in it's religions and ethnicities. The more of us who see that variaty as a blessing the better off the world will be.
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