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Sam Clemens knew what he was doing and he did it well. The fact that many find reasons for not reading him or for not educating their children about what he was trying to say may be important. Truth should not be controversial; something is wrong when it is.
I learned to read on my mother's lap at the age of four. My favorite character was "Little Brown Coco." He was featured as a tabloid-sized cartoon on the back page of "My Weekly Reader." His mother was named "Mammy" and wore a red and white spotted kerchief on her head, a full print dress and a white apron. The little brown boy was forever trying to find a way to steal a watermelon from the garden. Mammy would always prevail and chase him away with her broom.
I loved that little boy, and still do. I did not know that he was made a nigger so they could attribute bad behavior and not have to admit that little white boys might like to steal watermelons. I didn't steal watermelons; I stole grapes.
I would have admired him just as much if he had been white or, like the boy who swallowed the sea, Chinese.
It was later, when I was seven, that I learned about racism. The event that brought it to my attention and conscience was something between white men, including my father, and a black man at a gas station. I witnessed and rejected racism that day; I also learned to no longer fear my father and his leather belt, but that is another story. I am preparing to write about that day and until recently struggled about using that word, you know the one, the n-word, the nigger word.
Given the time (1948) and the circumstances, this important event in my life cannot carry its full weight if I do not quote those stupid, fear-filled, white men. There was nothing polite about what happened that day and it should not be softened. I want anyone who might read what I write to face the matter squarely. It was offensive as the truth often is. It would be a dereliction to soften what was said as what was said fully exposed the bigotry, fear, subsequent anger and stupidity of those men.
Racism remains in America, not a little racism, a lot of racism and much of it in the South where they still fly Rebel flags. Don't try to tell me it isn't there for I know better. These days, racist euphemisms abound and one can see most of them in discussions about our current president, such as: not one of us, a Kenyan, a Muslim, a socialist – call him anything but nigger because we can’t do that anymore.
Remember the movie "Sounder." The movie had the father going to jail for a year because he stole a ham and some sausages to feed his family. The reality in much of the South was that black men were arrested on trumped charges so they could be put to work as virtual slaves. I won't go into details of this practice but the book version of Sounder implied it: the father spent three years as a slave until he was injured such that he was of no further economic use to his captors.
This chain-gang form of slavery continued until around 1938 in, I believe, Alabama.
We Americans have much to answer for and our continued and barely disguised racism is at the top of the list. So, I say, do not use the nigger word; I don't. But -- do not leave it out when it needs to be left in.
Joe Minton
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