N-word in the News Again
It’s a strange thing that
you can’t say the word nigger in
order to condemn its connotation without getting hit with headlines. Even
President Obama can’t. The reaction to that word, regardless of its context, is
provocative and electrifying.
No good use for it
We know this word causes
pain for blacks. It is racially divisive. For many whites it arouses feelings
of guilt about our history, particularly in the South. Anybody using that word
in conversation today is saying more about himself that about any African
American.
It terrifies publishers
NewSouth Publishing
reprinted Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and removed the word nigger so
black children won’t feel demeaned by reading it. Presumably NewSouth believes
it will improve the lives of African Americans if we eradicate that word not only from our contemporary vocabulary, but from
history as well.
There are those who would
follow NewSouth’s lead and remove the word from print—take it out of antebellum
novels, historic newspapers and magazines, the slave narratives, and
antiquarian books.
Easy Reading
The history of our country,
especially the South, is easier to read when we don’t have nigger to remind us that some of us suffered atrocities in
slavery and some of us tyrannized our fellowman. At the same time, getting rid
of the word will do away with some
of the ridicule and scorn whites inflicted and slaves endured in the 19th Century.
Our history is popular
reading for many Americans. We can enjoy it more and we can like ourselves
better when we have a history we can admire. Is this the kind of history we
need?
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| An inflammatory history produces inflammatory words Photo Courtesy of the Library of Congress |
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