I find it silly to stop teaching about classic books about slavery, or the n word. Every race has been a slave to someone at one point and time in history, every race has been shown as ignorant and stupid at one point. The African American people have the N word, the White people have "Cracker" and various other names but the point is, if you just ignore it, then the children will not learn it is a racist word and then use it without the whole story of why it is bad and shouldn't be used. As long as parents talk with their kids and explain that this was the perception of a certain race of people back in the day and then inform them that this was a sterotype and a wrong sterotype at that then there shouldn't be an issue, we are doomed to repeat the past if we do not learn it and learn from it. These classic books should be taught, it doesn't just teach about what the past was like but it teaches a moral story, and if due to racial slurs (which are wrong and shows ignorance) is the main reason to ban books, then why don't we do the same to the bible and other great books that were written in the past. Kids are a lot more intellegent then we give them credit for but it takes guidance for the most part parents but the school system as well. But also it does take each race to not use the word themselves as slang, if an african american says the n-word then it is fine, and sometimes considered a compliment, but if any other race says that to an african american they are beaten up or worse killed. You can't have a double standard and expect everyone to know it, if it is not taught and understood that racism is bad, certain words are racist and are not to be used ever then you will just never take a step forward, instead you will be going backwards and that is something we as a human race do not need to do. Everyone just has to remember that every race has been a slave, had words that are demeaning towards their race, had stories that depict them in a bad light, but that is the learning process. The past is the past we can't change it, we can only attempt to make the future better, so teach kids the difference between what was "acceptable" back in the day vs. what is acceptable now, have them learn that what was in the past was wrong but we can change the course of today and have more respect, give them the tools to be better then their past relatives.
Rethinking Race In the Classroom
In the age of Obama, some want to banish 'Huck Finn' and abolish Black History Month. Why they're wrong.
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The day my ninth-grade english teacher, Mr. Buzzell, assigned my class "To Kill a Mockingbird" still sticks in my mind, mainly because I remember being the only one in the room excited to tackle the Harper Lee classic. Unlike most of my classmates, I'd already read the book about a white lawyer representing a black man accused of rape during the Great Depression. I'd also seen the movie twice (my mother loved Gregory Peck). Mr. Buzzell was a British-born white teacher attempting to explain the complexities of racism and injustice at a mixed-race school in Augusta, Ga., so the class discussions were pretty lively.
Maybe it was because we were in the Deep South that most of my classmates weren't much offended by Tom Robinson, the black field hand accused of raping a white woman. His slurred speech, substandard English and deference to the white people around him weren't exactly foreign to many of us who knew elders who'd employed some of those same tactics in an effort to simply survive.
But that was more than 20 years ago, in the '80s, when rap was just beginning on the streets of New York, Ronald Reagan was president and African-Americans were struggling to land significant positions within government. It is indeed a very different world today, a place where hip-hop dominates popular culture around the world and the president of the United States just happens to be an African-American man named Barack Obama.
In early January, just before Obama's inauguration, John Foley, a white high-school teacher in Ridgefield, Wash., penned a guest editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that suggested it was time to stop teaching books that readily use the "N word." Stories that portray African-Americans as inarticulate and unintelligent souls in need of white America often offended both his black and white students. Foley identified "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "To Kill a Mockingbird'' and "Of Mice and Men'' as three books that needed to be reconsidered immediately.
That editorial set off a fierce debate on blogs, radio shows and in classrooms across the country. Now that there's a black man in the White House, what message does it send our kids to read aloud a classic that uses the N word more than 200 times? While these arguments are hardly new, they're all the more important now given our rapidly changing attitudes on race, Foley argues. "I think at the time when we have this very articulate, smart and intelligent black man running the country, we don't need to reinforce the same negative stereotypes to young minds,'' says Foley, 48, who's received hundreds of angry letters from people across the country. "I'm very tired of having to explain to black parents and white kids as to why these books say the 'N word' again and again or having to watch my black students totally shut down as they read about black characters so far removed from the people they know.''
Foley's argument may sound simplistic and wrongheaded. But it does raise deeper questions about our comfort level around race, especially now. Though Obama himself called for more open dialogue during his campaign, most of us still struggle to speak frankly on the subject. Throw in not just the N word, but also, in the case of "Huck Finn," a portrayal of a childlike black man who seems to lack self-respect and dignity, and it's easier to see why it might make some—especially sensitive white teachers—squirm with discomfort or even embarrassment right now.
The debate hasn't been limited to literature either: in the past few weeks alone, National Public Radio, many African-American blogs and talk-show host Michael Baisden all led discussions questioning whether we still need Black History Month. "I think there is a certain sector of the country that now feels racism is over, let's move on,'' says Todd Boyd, who teaches race and popular culture at the University of Southern California.
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