Should The N-Word Be Purged From Mark Twain’s Classic?
MICHEL MARTIN, Host:
I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.
It's time for our weekly visit to the Barbershop, where the guys talk about what's in the news and what's on their minds. Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this week are author Jimi Izrael, columnist Ruben Navarrette, deputy managing editor for the National Review, Kevin D. Williamson, and screenwriter and graphic novelist John Ridley.
I'm all by myself down here in Washington. Take it away, Jimi.
JIMI IZRAEL: Thanks, Michel. Hey, fellas, welcome to the shop, how are we doing?
JOHN RIDLEY: Good, thanks.
RUBEN NAVARRETTE: Doing good, man.
KEVIN D: How's it going?
IZRAEL: K-dub, Hollywood, Happy New Year. A-train, what's up? I mean, not A-train, we got the R. I'm sorry.
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IZRAEL: What's up, everybody?
NAVARRETTE: Yeah, people get us confused all the time.
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IZRAEL: I'm glad everybody's here.
NAVARRETTE: Our politics are so similar.
IZRAEL: Right.
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IZRAEL: All right, well, let's jump into it. So, the first week of 2011 brought lots of changes in - not Hollywood, but Washington. The 112th Congress was sworn in and with it, Democrats officially relinquished control of the House of Representatives to Republicans, Michel.
MARTIN: And, of course, the new speaker of the House is John Boehner of Ohio, and he took the gavel. And I'll just play a short clip from his opening remarks. Here it is.
JOHN BOEHNER: We're going to make tough choices instead of avoiding them. That's why we're taking these first steps to repeal the job-killing, health care law that was passed last year over the objections of the American people.
MARTIN: Just remember those words: the job-killing health care law.
WILLIAMSON: I think that's the new official name on the legislation.
MARTIN: I think we're going to get fleece jackets printed up with that on it. Anyway, go ahead, Jimi.
IZRAEL: Thanks, Michel. OK, well, Ruben, now that the GOP's officially in control of the House, is trying to undo health care, the best strategy to fix Congress, as Speaker Boehner likes to put it? Well?
NAVARRETTE: Yeah. Well, what?
IZRAEL: Is that the best way to fix Congress?
NAVARRETTE: I don't think so. You know what? The Republicans' stance on this has been that, yeah, we hear that you're talking about number one issue, jobs in the economy, but their claim is that if you do away with health care reform, that would be a way to take the pressure off of businesses and it would have no benefit on jobs in the economy. You can make that argument, but I think people want a much more direct approach to the issue of jobs in the economy.
And I think most people see that when Democrats came in, they were serving a constituency and advancing a pet issue by going after and passing health care reform. Now, before you jump on me, now Republicans are doing the exact same thing in reverse. They're likewise advancing a pet issue and serving a constituency that wants to do away with health care reform, and that's what this is mainly about. It's about right wing politics and going after and being able to claim a victory here.
I think this is actually going to be good for both Republicans and Democrats to switch roles like this, because now Democrats, Republicans no longer get to complain and throw rocks from the outside, they actually now have to lead and govern, and we're going to hold them accountable and that's great. And likewise with Democrats, they're going to get a little change of pace. They're going to be able to throw rocks from the outside. It's going to be fun to watch them do that. So, it's good to shake things up, I'm glad it happened.
IZRAEL: Kevin.
WILLIAMSON: Yeah. The difference is that the constituency the Republicans are trying to serve in this constitutes at the moment about 60 percent of the electorate, so I think they probably got a better chance of doing it. Look, I think they're going to call every piece of legislation they don't like. The jobs killing this or that, and try to do that. And I agree, the health care bill is probably not what's keeping unemployment up near 10 percent. It's not the thing that's preventing investment. It's not the thing that's keeping the economy near the dumps.
It's a bad and stupid piece of legislation. It ought to be repealed. They ought to just repeal it because it's a bad and stupid piece of legislation. So, yeah, I think that's probably the direction they need to go on that.
You know, I thought it was interesting that when they were handing over power in the House, that Nancy Pelosi actually gave a longer speech going out than John Boehner did coming in. I think that just says volumes about the differences between their temperaments.
NAVARRETTE: Let me correct you about one thing - push back. That 60 percent figure, we've seen that - I've seen that both ways. I've seen 60 percent of Americans, 60, 70 percent of Americans support the bill, support health care reform, and I've heard Republicans say it in reverse. We're never going to solve that. There are people out there who don't like the specifics of this bill. But likewise, when Republicans come forward and said there's no problem with the health care system, people boo them out of the room.
MARTIN: You know, I think it is...
WILLIAMSON: Well, of course, and they should boo them out of the room because there are a lot of problems with the health care system, but you don't solve the problems with the health care system by, you know, entrenching the role of the insurance companies; you know, doing the mandates, the taxes, and all the additional spending. I mean, you're making the problems actually worse. So, yeah, if the Republicans came out and said, our alternative is to do nothing and leave things as they are, well, yeah, they'd get laughed off the stage, as they should be.
MARTIN: You know what? I do think that is a question, though, when you say - 'cause we just did a report on this yesterday that suggests that there are certain aspects of the bill that, you know, large majorities don't like - well, about 60 percent, but overall it's about a 50/50 proposition. About 50 percent of the people, or the voters, like it, and about 50 percent of the voters don't. And so in that situation, you know, maybe - maybe, Ruben, you want to take this - what, you know, who's the special interest group there?
NAVARRETTE: Well, the special interest...
MARTIN: (Unintelligible) right down the middle on this...
NAVARRETTE: You mean on the Republic - on the Democrat...
MARTIN: No, on the country. I'm not talking about Democrat or Republican. I'm saying down the country.
NAVARRETTE: I think...
MARTIN: It's true that Republicans are more united in their opposition to it. That's true.
NAVARRETTE: Yeah. I think...
MARTIN: But if you look overall, it's a 50/50 split. So who's - how can say there's a special interest here...
NAVARRETTE: Because...
MARTIN: ...when the country's right down the middle?
NAVARRETTE: Because Democrats have tried since - you know, since Bill Bradley talked about putting health care out there for just kids, since HillaryCare, going back to Ted Kennedy and all of his career in Congress. This was a pet issue for Democrats. This was something they wanted to get done. They've been trying for a long time to get it down. Now Republicans feel like the gauntlet has been thrown down and they've got to do - they've got to reverse it or repeal it to serve their constituency.
All I'm saying here is that this is mostly about politics. It's not about helping the economy or jobs. And the real divide in health care, the health care debate, is between Democrats who say the problem is more people need to be covered, versus Republicans who say we need to do something about bringing down costs. And that's - and that's how you, you choose your terrain, you know, you choose your terrain about how - that's why you have conflicting polls. But most people, I think, do not believe that the current system is working well.
MARTIN: John Ridley, what do you think? I'm sorry. I cut you off.
RIDLEY: I think the problem is, is that, you know, now is when the chili hits the cheese, and you go through these election cycles where people crank up their rhetoric to 11, as they would say in "Spinal Tap," and now you have to do something about it.
Health care, it's not going to get repealed. It could get fixed. I don't think there's anyone out there who thinks it couldn't be fixed. But the idea that you're going to repeal it, A) it's not going to happen, and B) there's a downside to it. You have the Congressional Budget Office yesterday said it's going to cost, if you repeal it, $142 billion in the next nine years or so.
So the idea that you have the Republicans who want to come in and should, I think, try to A) get jobs, and B) reduce the deficit, this is not going to do it. And I believe, as was said, the problem is you have on the one hand the Democrats, who are trying to get something done early and serve their viewpoint. Now you have Republicans, who have to serve, to a large part, what they were campaigning on, but you get the public, which tends to get caught in the middle and not much that needs to get done is going to get done if this is going to be the first thing out of the gate.
MARTIN: Jimi, what you think about this before we move on to Huck Finn and the N-word?
IZRAEL: Yeah, I'm a little worried about this being the first thing out the gate too, because it was so controversial. And I'm wondering if this is going to be the tone that they're want to set, that they're going to be undoing all kinds of changes down the line. It portends to like a really adversarial stance. It's not going to get a lot done.
MARTIN: But if you think it's wrong and you think that's why you're there is to do the right thing, I mean, you know, let's just take people at their word. They have a genuine belief that this is bad policy, bad for the country.
NAVARRETTE: Right.
MARTIN: Why would you wait? Why would you wait? If you really and honestly believe this will wreck the economy...
RIDLEY: Isn't that what they said about - that's what they said about Obama. At the same time it's, look, you know, get other things done first. Don't go after this.
NAVARRETTE: Right.
RIDLEY: And he said, look, this is important. I got to do it while I have the legislative power.
You could make the same argument for the Republicans. And by the way, I think it's fair to make that argument. But at the same time, is this the A-number-one most important thing when, as was said, jobs, jobs, get the economy going?
MARTIN: I hear you.
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NAVARRETTE: Well, Republicans are about to make the same mistake Obama did, which is to blow a lot of political capital on an issue that people do not put at the top of their list.
MARTIN: All right. If you're just...
WILLIAMSON: Although the fact is they can repeal it, but creating jobs is something Congress just doesn't know how to do.
MARTIN: I don't know if they can repeal it. (Unintelligible) the numbers are there for that. Let me just jump in and say, if you're just joining us, you're listening to TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We're having our weekly visit to the Barbershop with author Jimi Izrael, Kevin D. Williamson of the National Review, columnist Ruben Navarrette, and commentator John Ridley.
Back to you, Jimi.
IZRAEL: Thanks, Michel. Alright fellas, next up, the N-word in fine literature, not rap music, okay?
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IZRAEL: The newest version of "Huckleberry Finn" replaces the N-word...
NAVARRETTE: Right.
IZRAEL: ...more than 200 times in the book with the word slave, Michel. Really?
MARTIN: I think this is very interesting. I have to tell you, we had a big debate about this in the office. I just want to play a short, just a very short clip from an uncensored reading of the passage from "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." And if you're sensitive about the use of that word, then this is a good time to, you know, get a cup of tea. And then I'm to play another passage of the book, the same passage of the book with the word replaced with slave, which is what the editors of this version envision. That's their idea of the right thing to do here. So here it is.
Now, this is a passage from the book where Huckleberry Finn is describing a drunken rant his father is having. Finn's father is complaining about how the government, about the government, about how a particular, a free black man who he saw being able to vote. Here it is.
MARK DEVINE: Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I weren't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote again.
MARTIN: Now, that's performer Mark Devine. He's reading the - it's, it's - anyway, it's from an audio book.
And now I'm going to re-imagine what the new version would sound like and we've replaced the word as the editors envision. Here it is.
DEVINE: Thinks I, what is this country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I weren't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state in this country where they'd let that slave vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote again.
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WILLIAMSON: That is the worst thing I've ever heard.
RIDLEY: That's not fair.
NAVARRETTE: You can almost see his lips moving there. Yeah.
RIDLEY: That's a David Letterman thing.
IZRAEL: Right.
MARTIN: Go ahead.
IZRAEL: Thanks for that, Michel.
MARTIN: No, I'm just trying to make it real for you. I'm just trying to keep it real for you. Go ahead. What do you think? Go ahead, John.
IZRAEL: John. John, check this out. Now, you wrote for - you wrote the "Barbershop" TV on Showtime, the one based on the film. And how would you have felt if somebody tried to give any of your scripts the PC treatment like that?
RIDLEY: Well, talking about literature, I mean I would go to one of my books where I use the word and how that was changed.
IZRAEL: All right.
RIDLEY: Here's my thing. I think that when that word comes up in modern society, it tends to, it tends to overshadow larger issues. And I think people are focused on the word itself, is it appropriate, isn't appropriate. My concerns on a few levels, one, just as a writer - Mark Twain in the past, when editors made changes to his work when he was still alive, obviously, was outraged by it. He didn't want it. He didn't like it. And I think for a smalltime outfit and a guy whose name I won't mention because I don't want to give them any more press than he deserves, who believes he is a Mark Twain scholar, who feels that it is appropriate to go back and change the words - we're not talking about a translation from one language to another, where there may be debate about the word or how it's used. We're talking about the English language. And also, they are conflating a couple of books. They're taking Mark Twain and "Huck Finn" and making it into one massive book, which was obviously not done. That's wrong on its own level.
MARTIN: Mm-hmm.
RIDLEY: And this is a little hyperbolic, but to me this guy is sort of the Mark David Chapman of literature.
MARTIN: Oh dear.
RIDLEY: He's assassinating a work of an artist because he's in love with this guy.
IZRAEL: Oh wow. A little hyperbolic.
MARTIN: Well, let me...
RIDLEY: But I prefaced it. Let me say very quickly, though.
MARTIN: Go ahead.
RIDLEY: My issue with this, though, I think there is no sanitizing. This is not censorship in my opinion. This is sanitizing of the South, of slavery and of civil rights. You saw it happen with Haley Barbour, Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, you see that going on with Texas right now and the textbooks, where they're changing things about the civil rights movement, about Executive Order 9022, with the internment of Japanese-Americans, things like that. That is wrong.
The word itself is bad. It is nowhere nearly as bad as what slavery and the system of slavery was about. We don't teach that to our children, black or white or other. And to want to change it because we're sensitive about people's feelings is wrong. You wouldn't change the diary of Anne Frank because you were worried about words that were used. You'd want people to know how horrible...
WILLIAMSON: Yeah. And is there anyone less likely...
RIDLEY: ...that was. We should want people to know.
MARTIN: Yes, Kevin?
WILLIAMSON: Is there anyone less likely to be hurt by the contents of a book than an American public school student? I mean these are the, you know, most illiterate, bad reading level kids on the Earth. I mean they're really worried about this going on and hurting...
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WILLIAMSON: Yeah. I mean if we're really worried about kids being exposed to this word - I mean I live in the South Bronx. It's as common a word as the. But certainly a great work of literature is the last thing on Earth that's going to damage an American public school student.
NAVARRETTE: I say let's...
WILLIAMSON: (Unintelligible) lucky to get them through the book.
IZRAEL: Ruben.
NAVARRETTE: This is Ruben. As a writer I say change it, and here's why I say change it.
IZRAEL: Hmm.
NAVARRETTE: I thought about this. I thought about this initially. The one thing - yeah, writers care about the integrity of their work. They also want their work to be read, and the fact that this book has been banned so many places, not read, so many different generations now have lost out on this work because of this single word - if you change that one word, if you can get that book back into schools, then I think that there's no harm done to it.
What I find interesting about this debate is you can get African-Americans voting on both sides of it, saying the word's offense, take it out - versus hey, because we want to be true to the offensiveness and not sanitize it, leave it in. It's a complicated debate for that reason.
You can be a champion of the African-American community and still be torn on this issue. You can argue it, you know, round or flat. That's what makes it a good topic. But I think that the really, the really important thing is to get the book read again, to get it back into schools, and if changing one word does it, do it.
MARTIN: Jimi, can I - but don't tase me. But let me just play devil's advocate here. There's the whole question of - you know, you talked about rap earlier.
IZRAEL: Mm-hmm.
MARTIN: But you know, artists sometimes do offer different versions of the same work. They'll say, okay, here's my radio-ready version of the work, because I want to get the work out there, and then here's the adult version of it for people who are going to buy the work on their own or access the work on their own.
IZRAEL: Sure.
MARTIN: Is this really any different to Ruben's point? I'm not taking a position on this. I'm just offering that as an idea. So Jimi, what do you think?
IZRAEL: I guess what I'm wondering is should we have a, you know, a version Michelangelo's David with boxers on or maybe Venus de Milo where there's a version where she's wearing like a bathing suit? You know, if we took the N- word out of literature, you know, we wouldn't be reading James Baldwin. We wouldn't be reading Ralph Ellison. We wouldn't be reading Iceberg Slim.
MARTIN: No. No. That's not what I said though. What I said is not taking it out but taking it out for a - to Ruben's point - taking it out for a specific audience to get them introduced to the work, and saying when you're older you can get the unexpurgated version.
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NAVARRETTE: Broaden the audience.
RIDLEY: (Unintelligible) the author. I'm sorry, I don't...
MARTIN: Who's that, Jim? I'm sorry, who's...
RIDLEY: This is John.
MARTIN: John?
IZRAEL: Go ahead, John.
RIDLEY: You know, you made the point that the author or the artist makes that decision, in conjunction, obviously, with the studio or the record label or whatever. Mark Twain, again, when he was alive, went on record saying I don't want other people changing my work. In fact, he said very sarcastically, take the editor...
NAVARRETTE: Well, now he's dead. It's not up to him anymore.
MARTIN: Yeah. He's not here anymore...
NAVARRETTE: Yeah.
MARTIN: Is that because it's a classic?
RIDLEY: At the same time, when someone makes it explicitly clear I don't want my work changed, I don't think it's right for someone else, by the way, who claims to be a scholar and claims to know this individual's wants and intentions, to say, well, fine, I'll take it and change it. I would not want my work changed 10 years from now, 50 years from now, 100 years from now. And by the way, because he's dead I think goes to a larger issue of why among other reasons the copyright law needs to be extended beyond its 50 or 75 years, so that the family, at least, someone involved could make a decision. But when someone has basically gone on record saying I don't want changes, to simply say I want to make a change, by the way, a smalltime outfit that's trying to sell some books, take something out of the public domain, change it, re-enter it into the public so they can sell something...
MARTIN: I'm sorry you don't have strong feelings about this, John. Next time maybe we can get you to really come out of your shell and...
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RIDLEY: I know. I got up late this morning. I didn't have time to look at the topics. I'm sorry.
MARTIN: Kevin, final question. Can I get a final thought from you on this? What about Rubin's point? Maybe it'll get more people to read it and then when kids are older...
WILLIAMSON: It's the fact that we would have to bowdlerize Mark Twain to get it into a public school classroom is an indictment of the schools and the people who run them. And if you're going to be changing something, you should be changing that and not the book.
NAVARRETTE: I like that.
RIDLEY: Well said.
NAVARRETTE: I can live with that.
IZRAEL: Yeah. Yeah.
IZRAEL: Here, here. I'll co-sign that.
RIDLEY: I like it.
MARTIN: Okay. A rare...
RIDLEY: Let the Congress work on that first.
MARTIN: A rare moment of agreement in the shop. I do know, a kind of, sort of agreement in the shop. That was Kevin D. Williams and he's deputy managing editor of the magazine the National Review. He's author of a new book out this month called "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism." You can read an essay adapted from the book in this week's National Review, and he's with us from our bureau in New York.
Jimi Izrael is author of the book "The Denzel Principle." He's with us from member WCPN in Cleveland. Ruben Navarrette is a columnist who writes for the Washington Writers Group and CNN.com. He was with us from San Diego. And John Ridley is a screenwriter, a graphic novelist and MORNING EDITION commentator. He's with us from NPR West.
Thank you all so much and Happy New Year to everybody.
NAVARRETTE: Happy New Year.
IZRAEL: Yup-yup.
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MARTIN: And that's our program for today. You've been listening to TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin.
Let's talk more on Monday.
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