Classrooms as Uncomfortable Spaces: Mark Twain and the "N- Word"

When you've read a lot of teaching philosophies and talked enough about teaching, you begin to realize that creating a "safe space" for students is part and parcel of many teachers' pedagogical approach. This usually means that these teachers strive to create an atmosphere in their classrooms that encourages students to speak their mind, not judge or insult others, and not use discriminatory language.

However, "safe" is not synonymous with "comfortable." I think learning should be uncomfortable. Students should be led into unfamiliar and uncertain territory. With good teaching, students brought to this "learning edge" can glean insight by viewing problems and issues in new ways. When it comes to discussing race in the classroom, however, some teachers opt for a "better safe than sorry" pedagogy, treading lightly for fear of offending others. I'm guilty of this, too.

And so, last Sunday I watched with interest the 60 Minutes segment on New South books' revised edition of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, which changes the n- word with "slave."



I agree with Bradley's argument that Huckleberry Finn without the n- word isn't really Huckleberry Finn at all. I also agree with his assertion that, to a certain extent, if students are comfortable talking about race then they're not really talking about race. Where can we draw the line so we don't sacrifice learning for the sake of comfort?

As I ask this question, I'm reminded of The Daily Show's "Senior Black Correspondent" Larry Wilmore's take on this controversy:
                       

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However, discomfort for the sake of discomfort isn't the way to go either, as Michael Scott illustrated:



So, where does this leave us?
Obviously, it's easy to split the difference between two extremes, but I think the difference between these two bits is that The Daily Show segment acknowledges the structural components of racism, while manager Michael Scott locates racism at the individual level. In short, Michael Scott thinks racism can be eradicated by changing individual values and attitudes; Larry Wilmore humorously indicts the linguistic structures themselves ("slave" is a "occupation"). While individual attitudes are important to consider, it's socio-economic conditions like urban flight, school districting, incarceration levels, state and federal law, and media portrayals that enable racism to continue. Language is also something to consider, and of primary importance to a teacher of communication.

The problem with changing the language in Huckleberry Finn is that doing so seems to attend to individual attitudes without addressing the structural conditions of racism. While an extended discussion of the above conditions is probably out of the purview of a high school literature class, discussing the power of words can be a useful exercise, one that is  short-circuited by replacing making the aforementioned switcheroo.

Teaching public speaking has made me realize that many kids throw around words like "gay" and "retarded" with little thought about how and why they can use those terms in certain ways and others can't. Talking about the word in question, whether a teacher says it or simply defers to the "n -word" phrasing, allows students to consider how some groups have access to certain words and their meanings and others don't; when you get right down to it, there are comparatively few insults someone can hurl at a heterosexual white male. If we consider women, people of color, and gays and lesbians, we realize that in a name-calling contest, the straight white male will never run out of ammunition. This is a simplistic example, to be sure, but it illustrates the linguistic structures of racism.

Discomfort, for me (a straight, white male), comes from realizing I'm implicated in this system in ways I don't like and didn't choose. But once I begin to understand this, I can not only choose my words more mindfully (which is more than just saying, "racism is bad"), but I have a more comprehensive view of the sorts of dialogue that need to be initiated. Changing one word because we're uncomfortable with it doesn't teach us much of anything, except how to avoid talking about it.