Nigga please!

There is a war being waged in our school system–a word war. It’s a battle that revolves around the great American novel–The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The word “nigger” was written 219 in Mark Twain’s classic literature piece. The editors of New South books are banning the n-word from Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. The n-word will be replaced with the word “slave” in both of Mark Twain’s classics. I want to hear from you. Do you think your kids should be exposed to the n-word in our school system? Let me define the word and explain my position first. Then I invite the Ascension blog readers to leave their much valued opinion on this blog site.

According to dictionary.com, the term nigger  is now probably the most offensive word in English. Its degree of offensiveness has increased markedly in recent years, although it has been used in a derogatory manner since at least the Revolutionary War. Definitions 1a, 1b, and 2 represent meanings that are deeply disparaging and are used when the speaker deliberately wishes to cause great offense. Definition 1a, however, is sometimes used among African-Americans in a neutral or familiar way.  The other uses are considered contemptuous and hostile.

–noun 1.

Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive.

 a. a black person.

b. a member of any dark-skinned people.

2. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. 

a.  a person of any race or origin regarded as contemptible, inferior, ignorant, etc.

According to Wikipedia, Huckleberry Finn has been very popular since its original publication. It has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes along with its frequent use of the racial slur “nigger.”

For those of you who do not know, I am African-American. I am also a serious writer. I am currently writing a novel. Yes! I am using the n-word or shall I say the derivative of the n-word, “nigga,” in my novel. Why? Because of its authenticity in our culture. I believe that the impurities in our culture give life to this funny thing called art. Language must depict history in its true light. As an artist, one must be true to the period in which one is writing or drawing about. Therefore, if we can’t tell the truth in the classroom and deal with history’s ugly impurities, we can’t evolve as human beings.

Don’t get me wrong: I agree with the proponents who say that the word “nigger” is offensive to African-Americans because we were called niggers by white people  in a systematic effort to kill our pride and spirit as human beings. However, African-Americans are using the word “nigga” to redefine themselves and reclaim their power. While it is true that the word “nigger” can be viewed as evidence of self-loathing, it is also true that its derivative is being used as an act of empowerment in a lot of cases. Some even consider “nigga” as a term of endearment. Yes! It also means “friend.” I believe that African-Americans have the right to redefine the n-word precisely because it is used to our detriment and to the oppressor’s benefit. We are the ones that have endured the oppression associated with the n-word. Therefore, we are the only ones with the power to redefine that detestable word.

The use of the word “nigger” 219 times in Huckleberry Finn is not an outrage. It is the truth. The use of the word “nigger” in real life is an outrage. Please keep in mind that art is imitating life. The treatment of Africans and African-Americans in the past is the real outrage but it happened. We must know the difference between living in the past and learning from the past.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is told in the first person by Huckleberry “Huck” Finn. Here is a scathing look at the entrenched attitudes of white people in Southern antebellum society from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn:

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he’d GOT to be a slave, and so I’d better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she’d be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she’d sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn’t, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they’d make Jim feel it all the time, and so he’d feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain’t no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman’s nigger that hadn’t ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there’s One that’s always on the lookout, and ain’t a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn’t so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d a learnt you there that people that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.” (31.19)

Huck is unable to remove Jim and himself from their race-defined roles. This quote is a great example of how pervasive culture and society can be in a person’s mind. Although Huck can think for himself, he also can’t help but be swayed by everything he’s ever known up until this point. Racist ideas are deeply embedded in his mind and worldview. Religion is particularly difficult for Huck to leave behind, since he doesn’t really understand religious beliefs in the first place. His desire to “give religion a chance” overrides his own moral inclinations. He’s also afraid of what he doesn’t understand – namely, hell – and he’s more prone to waver on the safe side (i.e., obeying the church, and therefore not going to hell) than to believe in his own ideas.

Professors, teachers, parents and students have called for the removal of this book from reading lists for more than a half century. Published in the U.S in 1885, Huckleberry Finn is the fourth most banned book in schools. The new edition of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: The New South Edition is set for release in February 2011.

If we sit back and let people delete certain offensive words from our books that are being read in our school system, we are acquiescing to letting these same people delete the truth. Why let those accountable for racism get off the hook so easy?  I refuse to sit back and let ignorant people rewrite history to further their own agendas. We must speak up. It follows that a deletion of history is a deletion of self. Talk about self-loathing! I’m proud of the way that we fought back as a race.  To all of those people who want to delete and rewrite part of America’s history and ban and/or rewrite books, I have one last thing to say–nigga please!

Love, hope, peace, and joy,

Rachel Araya