ection>The Forbidden Word
The Symbol and Sign of Evil in American Literature, History, and Culture
JAMES HENRY HARRIS
The Forbidden Word
The Symbol and Sign of Evil in American Literature, History, and Culture
Copyright © 2012 James Henry Harris. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
isbn 13: 978-1-62032-260-4
eisbn 13: 978-1-62189-461-2
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
Harris, James Henry.
The forbidden word : the symbol and sign of evil in American literature, history, and culture / James Henry Harris.
xiv + 132 p. ; 23 cm.
isbn 13: 978-1-62032-260-4
1. Twain, Mark, 1835–1910. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 2. African Americans in literature. 3. Racism in literature. I. Title.
PS1305 .H31 2012
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Hard Out Here For A Pimp
Written by Jordan Houston, Paul Beauregard and Cedric Coleman Copyright (c) 2008 Tefnoise Publishing LLC (BMI). All Rights Administered by BUG Music, Inc., a BMG Chrysalis company. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
“Refugee in America” from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright©1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.
The lines from “Diving into the Wreck” copyright©2002 by Adrienne Rich. Copyright©1973 by W. W. Norton & COmpany, Inc, from THE FACT OF A DOORFRAME: SELECTED POEMS 1950–2001 by Adrienne Rich. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
“. . . Deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6: 13b—KJV)
“. . . They shouted back, ‘Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them, ‘Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted all the more, ‘Crucify him!’ ”
(Mark 15: 13–14—NRSV)
“. . . They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.”
(Jeremiah 4: 22c—NRSV)
“And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord . . .” (Leviticus 5: 17a—KJV)
Preface
The history and meaning of the forbidden word N-I-G-G-E-R in America is that of a vile pejorative slang term for a Black person. Nigger goes back to mid-eighteenth century English, which adapted it from the Spanish Negro for Black. In America, the word has been applied almost exclusively to persons of African descent. Mark Twain grew up in a white slave-holding society in which he probably heard the word more often than any other term for African Americans. His use of it in fictional dialogue reflects the Southern usage with which he grew up. It appears so often in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, more than 211 times, that it has fueled an unending debate over the question of whether Mark Twain was a racist. The NAACP and other groups have called for banning the book from schools and libraries. Film adaptations frequently omit the word completely.
This book is about my reaction to reading Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time as a fifty-three year old Black man participating in a graduate seminar focused entirely on the exegesis and criticism of this one book by Mark Twain. My book is also about the flashbacks and other conversations and dilemmas that were spawned by the use of the word nigger in a classroom setting where I was the only African American and the only non-white person.
The central dilemma of the American experience since 1619 has been race. And, for almost 150 years after the Civil War, the public discussion of race has gone underground. Even the election of the first African American President of the United States and the blabbering furor surrounding the mistaken arrest of Harvard’s most acclaimed Black professor have failed to evoke a national open-minded and critical public discussion of race. The discussion of race in America is as forbidden as the use of the word nigger. “You don’t know about me.” These poignant and revealing opening words of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn resonate in my own spirit. A whole lot of people have been battered, bruised, and burnt by the scorching tone and the scathing staccato emphasis on each letter of this two–syllable word,
N-I-G-G-E-R. This word plays with the mind and the emotions because its meaning and intent are grounded in racial hatred and white supremacy. It torments the soul of the Black American, who has a sense of history and culture. Those who don’t trust even Mark Twain or Huckleberry Finn to understand the feelings and experiences of Black people have a right to be suspicious. Benevolence can only go so far.
Throughout the book Huck, the adolescent narrator, is a very good liar to himself, Jim, and others. In particular, Huck is a persistent and indefatigable liar like so many when it comes to the freedom of Blacks. I really wonder about him and Twain. As I read the book, I don’t trust either of them because I’m a skeptic and a doubter by temperament. I’m very suspicious. I certainly “don’t know about him!” And, he doesn’t know about me, either, I think to myself.
I remember Hurricane Katrina’s power to expose how America still views Blacks as invisible long after Ralph Ellison’s gripping story about spooks and Hollywood ectoplasms. Katrina’s devastating effects upon millions of poor white and Black folks unable to escape the ravages of this storm and the antediluvian torpor of the local, state, and federal government. “Call this a gov’ment. O, yes, this is a wonderful gov’ment, wonderful.” In this case, Pap Finn was right for all the wrong reasons.
The hurricane’s effects were seen in the pain and suffering on the faces of Black folk who were dazed, some frazzled and frayed by the wind and the water and the knowledge that hopelessness and despair had engulfed them in the vortex of the swirling winds and crumbling levies. The old, the young, the poor, the sick. They were mainly Black, bound by the chains of indifference from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the White House. With all the water rising and people drowning and floating, I kept thinking of the Trans-Atlantic “Middle Passage” because New Orleans looked like the sea, the Atlantic Ocean carrying cargoes of Blacks to the point of no return. That storm caused
