I write this recognizing that, as a white man, I will never and can never know the emotional impact of having the word “nigger” thrown at me. I wrestle with this being a “do-gooder” issue, wherein a lot of whites see a problem and rush in to try and fix it, all without ever seeking input from those we think we are trying to help. Some are going to argue for change because it will help people feel better, a noble aim that will open the doors of a book I love to many more people. Others, like myself, will argue against change, knowing that the harsh reality is that African American children assigned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will be required read and hear the word “nigger” 291 in/around an academic setting. This is not something I take lightly for, as anyone who knows me knows I abhor prejudice, discrimination, and derogatory/inflammatory language. But I must speak out against the actions of Alan Gribben, the Auburn Professor who took it upon himself to remove all 291 appearances of the word “nigger” in Huckleberry Finn and replace it with “slave”. His rationale for doing this is to make it easier for the teachers of today to teach it, easier for the children of today to read it, and more acceptable to the parents of today. I get it, but could not disagree more, with both his intent and his action.
All art is sacred, but when people use the phrase “Great American Novel”, they are talking about Huck Finn. It is us as a Nation, our history, and sadly our present for so many still. If we cannot face the ugly truths about this, it/they/we can never change. People talk about how the word “nigger” has changed in meaning since publication, but it hasn’t. It may be used in new ways, but when a bigoted white person still wants to debase, diminish, and dehumanize an African American or all African Americans, he or she will still use the word “nigger”. We don’t mean slave today, nor Twain back when he was writing his masterpiece. It is wholly unique word in the English language, meant to tear at the soul of those upon whom it is heaped, and because it carries with it the weight of America’s history of slavery, sharecropping, and the institutional attempts to subjugate and oppress African Americans, it is hurtful on a level that any who is not African American can truly understand. “Nigger and “Slave” aren’t synonyms, indeed Huck’s father calls a free African American “nigger” in the text. It’s a word meant to tell its victims “you are less than human”, and that meaning of hasn’t changed, which is why it must be read, and felt, and discussed by students, teachers, parents, and all readers alike.
Huck’s story, his journey, isn’t some nice little tale about two friends from different worlds going down the Mississippi on a raft. No, it is about Huck’s process of consciously rejecting the racist social indoctrination he’d gone through as a youth because of the example that Jim sets. The further South they get on the river, the more Huck lets go the traditional lessons on slavery and race. “Nigger Jim” becomes Jim, the only humane and moral male role model this 12 year old boy ever had. Jim then replaces Jimmy Finn (Huck’s biological dad), and becomes his real father figure, for it is surely no coincidence that those two men share the same name. That’s the beauty and the irony of this story, its characters, and its message. Without first seeing Jim as a “nigger”, as a being less than him, there is no reason for him to grow and change. It’s as simple as that. This is a book about a dramatic, huge, earth-shaking change, and if we sanitize it, we remove the impetus to make that change. It’s not Huck who helps Jim escape, but the other way around; if we change Twain’s words, soften them to our modern ears, we lose that fact.
It is so complicated, so deep, and so powerful. Every white adult Huck knew, from his birth to the end of the novel, told and showed him that slaves like Jim were worthless and less than human. If we take out the word “nigger” and say call him only “Slave Jim”, the story isn’t one about how people must recognize the humanity of those who are different than them, it become a tale about the need to end slavery. Certainly, the two are related, but you can free slaves without accepting them into your society, which explains how Buffalo, a key stop on the Underground Railroad, remains the 4th most segregated city in the nation. You cannot, however, enslave someone you see as human, as your equal. There is a difference, and if all of us make Huck’s journey, much more positive, powerful, and long lasing change will occur in America.
Now, I understand his motives, and I recognize Professor Gribben’s desire to be a “do-gooder” in the fight against racism. I get it. And with more than a twinge of shame, I admit that I, too, was once moved by those same motives. The first time I taught Huck Finn to my sophomore classes, I mistakenly gave my students the option of saying either “slave” or “black person” instead of “nigger” when reading aloud in class, so long as they chose what I or they felt, naively, was the correct substitute. I wanted to spare them the ugliness of hearing such an ugly word in a place of learning, or worse – having to say it themselves. I gave them all kinds of PC justifications for why Twain used the word, what he really meant, how times have changed, etc. In the end, I was just as guilty of mindless “do-gooder-ism” as Professor Gibben. I had no idea the impact this was having, and it was only after hearing a student say of the controversy surrounding Huck – “what’s the big deal, it’s just a story,” that I realized I’d stripped the power out of Huck’s journey and his transformation. It was not a mistake I repeated.
Again, I sympathize with Professor Gribben. It’s a difficult book to teach, especially as most come to it with preconceived ideas about Twain’s message. Rather than simply hitting the “Find” and “Replace All” buttons in MS Word however, Gribben could have devoted his time and energy to devising a good “How-to” guide for teaching Huck Finn. He could have hosted seminars that showed teachers and parents alike how to discuss its impact, its vision for the world, and ways to use it as a device for true change. To do what he has done, however noble his intentions might be, is to rob readers to the message of Huckleberry Finn, that if a ignorant poor boy, raised in the depths of the slaveholding south, can completely reject the prejudiced and oppressive teachings he’s had on race in America, then so can anyone else.
