Interviewer Byron Pitts’ CBS broadcast about “HUCKLEBERRY FINN and the N-Word,” March 20, 2011, brought the media discussion to a close. Headline news thereafter cycled to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan and the Arab Spring uprisings.

The hurt expressed by an African American student in the n-word-spoken classroom vividly showed the pain and the power of the racial insult. More than anything else that transpired during 2011, this revealing broadcast cooled the ardor of the pro-n-word crowd.

Here is an excerpt of his interview with Randall Williams, editor-in-chief of NewSouth Booksl

B. PITTS: “What’s it say that people have been so passionate about it [the n-word]?”

R. WILLIAMS: “I think it says that race continues to be a volatile and divisive subject.”

BP: “Do you think the discomfort starts and stops with the n-word? Or the discomfort extends to a conversation about race?”

RW: “In this specific instance, it is the word itself that is the problem. People are not coming up saying, ‘Well, we can’t teach this book because it’s got a discussion about slavery.’ What they’re saying is, ‘We can’t teach the book because it’s got all these repetitive instances of the offensive n-word in there, and therefore, we’re not going use it.'”

RW: “If you can have the discussion and you’re comfortable having the discussion, have it. Have it with it [the n-word] in there. But if you’re not comfortable with that, then here’s an alternative for you to use. And I would argue to you that it [the novel] is still powerful.”

RW: “Is the argument that these [high school] kids should be subjected to [the] pain [of reading the n-word in class]? I mean, I don’t see the point of that.”

RW: “The only thing missing from their reading of this [HUCKLEBERRY FINN] will be the word itself. Have we taken every bit of the value of Twain out? Well, that’s a preposterous argument. I can’t even see that argument.”

5/5 THE END

Purchase the NewSouth Edition or the Original Text Edition from Amazon https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+alan+gribben+books&rlz=1C1EJFC_enUS868US868&oq=amazon+alan+gribben+books&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.8542j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 or from the University of Georgia Press. In 2023 NewSouth Books merged with the University of Georgia Press https://ugapress.org/imprints/newsouth-books/