Huck Finn Book Banning Project. Why It Should Be Banned from Public School Curriculum.

Book Banning Project

'Huck Finn' a masterpiece -- or an insult

Renton High revisits teaching of book after objections raised

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

By GREGORY ROBERTS

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/149979_huck26.html

'It's not just a word'

"Huckleberry Finn," first published in 1885, chronicles the journey of a rough-hewn, 13-year-old white boy and a runaway slave down the Mississippi River on a raft through the antebellum South. What's wrong with the book, Clark, Phair and numerous other critics have said, is its use of the notorious "n" word -- not once, not a few times, but more than 200 times.

"It's not just a word," said Clark, the guardian for her granddaughter. Both are African American.

"It carries with it the blood of our ancestors. They were called this word while they were lynched; they were called this word while they were hung from the big magnolia tree.

"That word, in the history of America, has always been a degrading word toward African Americans. When they were brought to America, they were never thought of as human beings in the first place, and this word was something to call a thing that wasn't human.

"So that's what they bring into the classroom to talk about. I just think it's utterly unconscionable that a school would think it's acceptable."

Clark, who was president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Renton High last year, took up the battle against "Huckleberry Finn" after Phair reported in April that her 11th-grade language arts teacher had assigned the book.

"I was humiliated and horrified that this book was being taught, when it has the word 'nigger' 215 times," Phair said.

Before the language-arts students turned to Chapter 1 of "Huckleberry Finn," their teacher, Hilari Anderson, led the class in two weeks of discussion about the controversy surrounding the book and its terminology. The class viewed videotapes addressing the issue, researched the definition of the n-word and hashed out ground rules for its inclusion in the classroom.

Clark sat in on one of those classes.

"I just couldn't believe what I was hearing," she said. "That in the year 2003, the teacher was saying, 'Today, we're going to discuss the use of the word 'nigger.' "

"Huckleberry Finn" is listed among the books approved by the Renton School District for assignment in the 11th-grade language arts class, and Anderson has opted to teach it in each of her six years at Renton High. She speaks of her "passion" for Twain's novel.

"In terms of contemporary issues, I think it opens the door to a conversation that we just don't have, in terms of who are we and where do we come from and what does our language mean and why kids in the hallway use the word so frequently," she said.

"We could ignore the book, but then we're ignoring history. We're ignoring that that language exists. I don't think, in the long run, that's helpful to our kids."

Anderson, who is white, said Twain attacks the racism of 19th-century America in his book. Jim, the slave, is a man of dignity, while most of the white characters are ne'er-do-wells, rapscallions or criminals. Huck, the product of a society in which even the churches condone slavery, consciously risks eternal damnation to cast his lot with Jim.

Two students object

Black students account for just over a third of the enrollment at Renton High, making up the single largest ethnic group at the school; students of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry represent 30 percent of the student population, white students 25 percent and Hispanic students 9 percent.

At the end of each unit on "Huckleberry Finn," Anderson asks her students to write an essay arguing for or against the banning of the book from schools. In six years, she said, not one student has written an essay calling for expelling the book from the curriculum.

Phair didn't get that far. She sat in amazement through the preliminary discussions.

"I found it pretty shocking that where the book was supposed to be educational, they were trying to sugarcoat it and say, 'Now that we've done all this, it's OK to read it,' " she said.

"How do you teach a word that's degrading and denigrating to a race with sensitivity?"

Clark said, "The word 'nigger' doesn't change. We don't want to educate our kids in niggerology."

Surely, she said, the lessons taught by "Huckleberry Finn" can be learned from other, less inflammatory sources.

"They're probably are a lot of books that might have the n-word, but I don't think you need to get a book that's saturated with it," she said.

Phair asked to be excused from reading "Huckleberry Finn," and so did a classmate who has since moved out of state (Anderson said they are the only two of her students who have ever sought to avoid the book). Phair was assigned "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin instead, and she attended study hall during the language-arts classes that discussed Twain's novel.

But Clark wasn't satisfied with that. She wants the book ruled ineligible altogether for assignment to any of the 12,600 students in the district, although she does not object if it remains in school libraries.

Phair, too, pressed the fight. She handed out fliers attacking the book in school hallways and at local events. Under the name Students and Parents Against Racial Slurs, she and Clark have sought to round up support.

The squabble became something of a community cause celebre. Phair was interviewed on radio and TV. Ironically, she said, she was instructed by the interviewers not to utter the n-word on the air. Local newspapers weighed in on the dispute; one paper -- the semi-monthly Renton Reporter -- editorialized in favor of the teaching of the book, but specifically declined to print