Read on Twitter
I keep coming back to that one person trying to defend that nyt reporter using the n-word with "what if he was reading student's hucklberry finn???"
First off, he wasn't
second, does that book exist in the culture, currently, for white ppl for any reason besides claiming it's ok for them to say the n word?
second, does that book exist in the culture, currently, for white ppl for any reason besides claiming it's ok for them to say the n word?
I'm not a Twain fan. Like every black kid who went to PWIs where Huckleberry Finn was weaponzied, I loathe that book. And I kinda wonder why white readers hold on to it so tightly...
in the last 60 yrs, it's just become this cudgel of exceptionalism. white violence excused under "but it's for art!" cover. Which I think Twain himself would have despised...
and the idea that white readers are somehow learning something from the novel--it's been in publication for 150 yrs and the core lessons--black men are human beings and US slavery was atrocious--are TO THIS DAY really hard for majority of white ppl in this country to grasp...
so if you're saying you're reading it for its "lessons" then something ain't clicking and maybe it's not a good teacher ?
