so called "Old Literature"

[PeterL]

Mark Twain used it as pejorative already. It was a term to describe black slaves and he uses it to describe the behaviour of those who cannot see Jim more than an object. The obvious implication that is a being of inferior condition is all there.

And no, it was received as pejorative. The offense is in the ear of the receptor as well, after all, no theory of that describes the communicative process lay all production of significance on the person uttering the message.

Kiki:

Read well what I said: it was the reading public, white, that wasn't aware of this. The africans were well aware of this, but they are not part of the reading public, as slaves, they had no education. Do not mix the limitations of perception of a public plus the lack of power and expression of another with historical revisionism. The white population discovered that the africans felt bad with the word, it is not just a simplistic guilty feeling. It was a result of african-americans incorporation to america society, do not try to make it also a process of the white population.

Twain did not use the word nigger as a pejorative. He used it a general term for dark skinned people. Huck and Tom treated Jim as a person, and they were aware of his color. The reading public knew the word and they commonly used it a a general word. Any word can be used pejoratively, if the speaker or writer wishes to use it that way.

[islandclimber]

Twain did not use the word nigger as a pejorative. He used it a general term for dark skinned people. Huck and Tom treated Jim as a person, and they were aware of his color. The reading public knew the word and they commonly used it a a general word. Any word can be used pejoratively, if the speaker or writer wishes to use it that way.

They chose this particular word, amongst several other general terms. As is common knowledge "coloured" was much preferred at the time by the receptor of the term. The word was certainly chosen prior to others because it signified more contempt, derision and scorn, alongside the enslavement of the race. Semiotic analysis of the term and what it signifies to both producer and receptor shows this very early in its usage. Certainly by the time of Twain.

Gower in 1965 states that nigger is "the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks."

The Harlem renaissance writer Langston Hughes made his 1940 plea for omitting the "incendiary word" from all literature. "Ironically or seriously, of necessity for the sake of realism, or impishly for the sake of comedy, it doesn't matter . . . [African Americans] do not like it in any book or play whatsoever, be the book or play ever so sympathetic."

In his memoir, The Big Sea, Hughes also wrote: "The word nigger, you see, sums up for us who are colored all the bitter years of insult and struggle in America."

However, I do believe the removal of the word from this text is absurd. He was using it to accurately portray the era of the early 1800s in the South. Just reading the introduction illustrates this as he states that he uses, "the extremist form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect" and "the ordinary Pike County dialect." Both these dialects would certainly have used the word, so why censor it? We must understand the past. The word was prevalent, as was the notion of white superiority at the time. It is, however, a mistake to suggest that the word was not considered offensive until the 1950s. That's revisionist history at its worst.

[Emil Miller]

The word nigger is frequently used throughout the text, as one would expect, given the time at which it was written and that the protagonist is black.

However, it's not just the title that has been changed but 'the N-word' is used throughout.

Someone's gotta be joking.

[JCamilo]

Twain did not use the word nigger as a pejorative. He used it a general term for dark skinned people. Huck and Tom treated Jim as a person, and they were aware of his color. The reading public knew the word and they commonly used it a a general word. Any word can be used pejoratively, if the speaker or writer wishes to use it that way.

Yes, it was as pejorative. He knew the meaning enough to avoiding using it but in the comical , steryitipical way he did in Huck Finn. I have no idea why you are insisting on trying to prove something everyone showed: nigger was always pejorative in the USA scenary.

[OrphanPip]

The idea that Huck Finn is racist because of the use of nigger is a bit of a strawman argument against those who are concerned about racial representation in the work.

Educators have pointed out that the use of the word, no matter its context, makes for a difficult learning environment for African American students, and so there is good reason either to exclude the work or censor it in a classroom environment with children. There is a lot of anecdotal accounts of black people feeling singled out when they are in a minority position in the classroom. Given the goals of high school education, teaching Huck Finn uncensored can be counterproductive.

Then there is a more academic line of criticism which has viewed the book as part of the affectionate, liberal orientated racism of the late 19th century that was part of the infamous minstrelsy tradition. The vaudeville black minstrel tradition would have white actors use black-face to parody the stereotypes of African Americans, and this same tradition of racial comedy plays out in Huck Finn. The work is implicated in 19th century racism even if it is speaking out against the more insidious manifestations of racism (i.e. slavery). Moreover, a work published a few decades after emancipation can hardly be viewed as radically progressive for criticizing slavery. There is good reason to acknowledge that Huck Finn is in many ways a racist text, and this is part of the work that should not be brushed aside. The racism of Huck Finn is but one element of an excellent work and it should be understood as part of the critical discussion surrounding it, which influences how we think of the culture that produced it and how we receive the novel. This is not an argument to censor the text, but a call to be conscientious about all the nuances of a majorly canonical text.

[kiki1982]

Sorry, you are mistaken. It was considered pejorative much earlier than the 1950s. In fact, from a Washington Post publication on the term:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...ap1/nigger.htm

And in 1904, Clifton Johnson (journalist) wrote about the opprobrious nature of the word, emphasizing it was used in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "coloured." Even the 1909 founding of the "National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People" shows that their preference for racial identity was "coloured" and not "nigger."

It was the 1950s and 60s when "Black" became the preferred racial identifier. "Nigger" had been considered offensive for at least 50 years, if not 100, by that point. It was certainly used pejoratively, with an intent to offend from around the turn of the century.

It is somewhat offensive to read misinformation being put forth about this term and how "harmless" or "innocent" it was just 60 years ago. This notion is categorically false. I suggest a little research before making such a claim.

Do you know what opprobrious means? It does not mean offensive (by extension only), it means expressing scorn, disgrace or contempt. You might call that offensve, but there is a difference. In its first sense it merely expresses the idea that blacks designated with the word nigger are a lower kind of human being, which is natural, seeing the timeframe. It was a fact that all non-Caucasian creatures were of lower value, however sad that may be. At this point the Germans were doing experiments in Namibia, I think it was. And the Laps were being measured by the Swedes. At any rate the term employed in the two quotes comes from people who are living past 1900, i.e. 20 years after Mark Twain and crucially about 40 years after the emencipation of the slaves.

The article you have so kindly provided a link to only tells me that, indeed, the word started to be used widely as a word of denigrating quality (worse than a nigger as a metaphor for something bad). Only much later do people start to associate that widely expressed inferiority with shameful behaviour, from a merely ethical point of view (the ablitionists). Whether those same people thought that black people were equal in everything to whites is doubtful. Why otherwise was there still segregation in the 1950s? The point is that people like Abraham Lincoln found slavery wrong because all humans were equal in God's eyes, they maybe freed them, but you didn't have to ask them to sit next to them on a bus. Blacks were still inferior and that wasn't even an offensive thought (not to the whites at least).
It is when people started to assocate the shameful idea of slavery with nigger (it is a slavery term) that it became offensive to everyone. I put this in itaics as this word has two different recipients: the white reader and the black + other different race ones. Naturally the latter group will find it offensive, and probably found it offensive, way before tthat seaped through the hard skulls of the white population. The whites did not consider that. The mabslavery wrong and that was where it stopped in all likelihood.

And yes, of course the black population would have found that offensive, but they we in the vast minority, so who cared? (to be blunt)

Read well what I said: it was the reading public, white, that wasn't aware of this. The africans were well aware of this, but they are not part of the reading public, as slaves, they had no education. Do not mix the limitations of perception of a public plus the lack of power and expression of another with historical revisionism. The white population discovered that the africans felt bad with the word, it is not just a simplistic guilty feeling. It was a result of african-americans incorporation to america society, do not try to make it also a process of the white population.

Of course the Africans were aware, but as I said above, they were not really a concern. Fristly there was wide-spread illiteracy (20 years after the Civil War) and secondly, the total US population was around 49 million. Do you think a mere 4 million blacks (in 1860, the population did not fluctuate too much from 1790 to 1860, always hovering around about 10-20% of the population who could have found that word offensive [and there are always exceptions] would have mattered? Most of the reading public is typically middle or high class with time to read. I don't know about the USA, but it would surprise me that that would have been very different. Middle and high class Americans were typically whites.

Words and languages are the products of people and if 80% of a population finds a word commonplace, indeed even uses it to tell their children off, I doubt whether 20% can change that.


By the way, I still don't understand what the problem with this word is if Twain clearly used it to say someing about his characters instead of calling black people that genuinely. But that's me.

The idea that Huck Finn is racist because of the use of nigger is a bit of a strawman argument against those who are concerned about racial representation in the work.

Educators have pointed out that the use of the word, no matter its context, makes for a difficult learning environment for African American students, and so there is good reason either to exclude the work or censor it in a classroom environment with children. There is a lot of anecdotal accounts of black people feeling singled out when they are in a minority position in the classroom. Given the goals of high school education, teaching Huck Finn uncensored can be counterproductive.

That's an interesting thought. I had never thought about it that way, but that's indeed a good point.

[JCamilo]

The idea that Huck Finn is racist because of the use of nigger is a bit of a strawman argument against those who are concerned about racial representation in the work.

Of course. It undeniable "Nigger" was negative, that Twain used it because it is one of the themes of the book, but the work itself is not racist. The entire censorship is dumb. There would be no problem to have a preface dealing with the use of the word, so the teachers could actually teach literature without a problem.

Kiki:

Of course the Africans were aware, but as I said above, they were not really a concern. Fristly there was wide-spread illiteracy (20 years after the Civil War) and secondly, the total US population was around 49 million. Do you think a mere 4 million blacks (in 1860, the population did not fluctuate too much from 1790 to 1860, always hovering around about 10-20% of the population who could have found that word offensive [and there are always exceptions] would have mattered? Most of the reading public is typically middle or high class with time to read. I don't know about the USA, but it would surprise me that that would have been very different. Middle and high class Americans were typically whites.

Words and languages are the products of people and if 80% of a population finds a word commonplace, indeed even uses it to tell their children off, I doubt whether 20% can change that.


By the way, I still don't understand what the problem with this word is if Twain clearly used it to say someing about his characters instead of calling black people that genuinely. But that's me.

Yes, they were not a concern. Of course, because a bunch of racists did it to them. And of course, we are talking about modern readers. Plus you are just repeating what I said and this shows the word was alreadynegative and it was already a matter of raising the white population awareness by the afrian social fight.

I have no problem with the word in Huck, but trying to imply the word is not racist is just as wrong as political correctness. The teachers must be able to reckon it and give to the kid the context, because that is teaching literature.

[islandclimber]

Do you know what opprobrious means? It does not mean offensive (by extension only), it means expressing scorn, disgrace or contempt. You might call that offensve, but there is a difference. In its first sense it merely expresses the idea that blacks designated with the word nigger are a lower kind of human being, which is natural, seeing the timeframe. It was a fact that all non-Caucasian creatures were of lower value, however sad that may be. At this point the Germans were doing experiments in Namibia, I think it was. And the Laps were being measured by the Swedes. At any rate the term employed in the two quotes comes from people who are living past 1900, i.e. 20 years after Mark Twain and crucially about 40 years after the emencipation of the slaves.

The article you have so kindly provided a link to only tells me that, indeed, the word started to be used widely as a word of denigrating quality (worse than a nigger as a metaphor for something bad). Only much later do people start to associate that widely expressed inferiority with shameful behaviour, from a merely ethical point of view (the ablitionists). Whether those same people thought that black people were equal in everything to whites is doubtful. Why otherwise was there still segregation in the 1950s? The point is that people like Abraham Lincoln found slavery wrong because all humans were equal in God's eyes, they maybe freed them, but you didn't have to ask them to sit next to them on a bus. Blacks were still inferior and that wasn't even an offensive thought (not to the whites at least).
It is when people started to assocate the shameful idea of slavery with nigger (it is a slavery term) that it became offensive to everyone. I put this in itaics as this word has two different recipients: the white reader and the black + other different race ones. Naturally the latter group will find it offensive, and probably found it offensive, way before tthat seaped through the hard skulls of the white population. The whites did not consider that. The mabslavery wrong and that was where it stopped in all likelihood.

And yes, of course the black population would have found that offensive, but they we in the vast minority, so who cared? (to be blunt)

I think it's pretty obvious I know what opprobrious means. My next post there, which you conveniently ignore, states the exact same thing you said, derision, contempt, scorn... Let's not be pedantic. Often opprobrious and offensive are linked and this is certainly a case where the link is justified. Shameful behaviour was associated with the term much earlier, as evidenced by the 1837 work quoted, long before Twain wrote. Also, in my next post I refer to Twain's introduction to Huck Finn where he nearly apologizes in advance for the dialectic used due to his desire to accurately portray the era and place. He certainly knew the term was pejorative at that time. The word has always been inextricably linked to slavery.

Besides this, I agree with you entirely. It was basically a question of "who cares" for certainly in the south the general populace did not, yet I think the term was certainly pejorative all the same, as it was a negative term associated with a race they thought to be created inferior, a race that was good for nothing besides enslavement. To argue that this word wasn't used pejoratively at the time is ludicrous. Though I don't think that is what you are doing.

I think my next post clearly states that I think the idea of revising these texts is absurd, as it portrays a part of history in a critical light. I agree with you. However, teaching it in school is problematic for the reasons OrphanPip pointed out. I suppose the question is how to determine where one must draw the line.

Sorry if this isn't perfectly coherent, it was typed on a phone.

[Drkshadow03]

Do you know what opprobrious means? It does not mean offensive (by extension only), it means expressing scorn, disgrace or contempt. You might call that offensve, but there is a difference. In its first sense it merely expresses the idea that blacks designated with the word nigger are a lower kind of human being, which is natural, seeing the timeframe. It was a fact that all non-Caucasian creatures were of lower value, however sad that may be. At this point the Germans were doing experiments in Namibia, I think it was. And the Laps were being measured by the Swedes. At any rate the term employed in the two quotes comes from people who are living past 1900, i.e. 20 years after Mark Twain and crucially about 40 years after the emencipation of the slaves.

I imagine if someone is suggesting a non-Caucasian is inferior or of lower value or deserving of scorn or disgrace because they're non-Caucasian that would be offensive.

[PeterL]

This thread is turning into an example of why people should read a lot more older literature. If people read things from just a couple hundred years ago, then they would realize that they are wasting time misunderstanding The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Unfortunately, there many other authors who wrote largely in colloquial American English of the 19th century CE, so it is difficult for some people to red how well Twain captured it, or enopugh so tht we can still read it while getting a good taste of how people actually spoke in informal settings.

The wikipedia article on Huckleberry Finn cites Please reference this as crit "#22235" in the
Lisa Cohen Minnick, Dialect and Dichotomy: Literary Representations of African American Speech. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004 in reference to Jim's dialogue. I will read that, if I get a chance.

Few 19th century authors used more than a smattering of slang, and it appears that much of the colloquial language has been lost, and some is now misinterpreted. As an example, pn another board someone opined that foul language was as common then as it is now, but we know perfectly well that that is not true. After we get the time machines running we'll have to send some people back and see what they think of American English in the 1840's.

[stlukesguild]

Educators have pointed out that the use of the word, no matter its context, makes for a difficult learning environment for African American students, and so there is good reason either to exclude the work or censor it in a classroom environment with children. There is a lot of anecdotal accounts of black people feeling singled out when they are in a minority position in the classroom. Given the goals of high school education, teaching Huck Finn uncensored can be counterproductive.

Pip... I agree to a good extent. But then I wonder what the impact would be in a school in which the Black population was the majority... or in which there were no white students. I teach in a school that is nearly 100% Black and in which the term "nigger"... or rather "nigga" is continually thrown about... actually as something akin to "my dude" or "my man." On more than one occasion students will exclaim, "Mr. K, you my nigga," and Black teachers and principals have noted that such is a compliment... an expression of acceptance.

I bring this up because I find issues of race... or more so "color" are more complicated and prevalent in the context of the all "Black" school/community than I would have guessed. Students will speak of darker-skinned peers as "Black" "Choco" "Charcoal" "African" etc... and of lighter-skinned peers as "White". The skin color of a student is often an identifying element. When trying to identify another student, the kids will often say, "That dark boy?" "The light-skinned one?" Almost in the manner in which white students might identify another by hair color.

I bring up the issue because there are some educators... and a good many Black educators... who feel that the kids don't grasp the history of the term "nigger" and are themselves quite offended (rightfully so) by the manner in which the term has been co-opted by the kids.

By the way... you'll note I don't use the term African-American which is almost never used by my Black students or teachers/educators. A principal actually gave us a quote by Martin Luther King in which he rejected the term "African-American".

Then there is a more academic line of criticism which has viewed the book as part of the affectionate, liberal orientated racism of the late 19th century that was part of the infamous minstrelsy tradition. The vaudeville black minstrel tradition would have white actors use black-face to parody the stereotypes of African Americans, and this same tradition of racial comedy plays out in Huck Finn. The work is implicated in 19th century racism even if it is speaking out against the more insidious manifestations of racism (i.e. slavery). Moreover, a work published a few decades after emancipation can hardly be viewed as radically progressive for criticizing slavery. There is good reason to acknowledge that Huck Finn is in many ways a racist text, and this is part of the work that should not be brushed aside.

Here, you lose me Pip. You suggest the text is racist in something of a liberal stereotype of Black Americans. So how does Twain avoid this? Is he simply to avoid employing Black characters and the real racist slang of the era? Then would the results not be racist in the sense that TV shows of the 1950s were racist in that there simply were no Black Americans? I also have to wonder if you imagine that a novel like Lolita is a form of pedophilia because Humbert is a pedophile. In other words... are we again struggling with those who cannot differentiate between the art and the artist?

[JCamilo]

Peter, Nobody claimed Twain didnt use realistic coloquial language in his work and this realism is very relevant to the effect of the work, it is just claimed that slang was offensive already then, which have been proved enough for you to drop the ball instead of trying to suggest anyone how well read they should see. Of course, that was showed by islandclimber, with older literature which you seem to ignore. Ironic,isn't?

Stlukes:

My suggestion and what I did here is just giving the teacher the information to explain the use of the terms, the context of the work, etc. If the book is going to be adopted in schools no damage of if the publishers add notes or essays dealing with the theme.

[Drkshadow03]

[COLOR="#B22222"]
Here, you lose me Pip. You suggest the text is racist in something of a liberal stereotype of Black Americans. ... are we again struggling with those who cannot differentiate between the art and the artist? (Emphasis mine)

Given that he was referring to academic criticism that suggests the text is racist because it employs certain racist stereotypes and tropes prevalent during its time I don't see how this is an issue of being unable to differentiate the art from the artist.

[Darcy88]

I'm obsessed with the ancient Greeks and Romans, and so I read a lot of material from back then. I also read a lot of 19th century novels. I love many authors from the first half of the 20th century but not too many from the latter half. I'm sure there have been many great works written since then, but for some reason I prefer to cover the classics first.

[hannah_arendt]

I strongly agree. Part of the allure of reading older works is seeing how a language has changed. Less than 100 years ago the word "nigger" was not pejorative; it was just one of the several words for dark skinned people. Alas, some people found it offensive, and we get the foolishness of pulling it out of a good novel.

Words are constantly changing their meaning. There are many forms of it. For example, polish word 'maciora', now meaning 'sow', in the XIV century meant 'mother'. The same happens with 'nigger'. We shouldn`t cancel any words from the text because it distroys its meaning.