enough, we're susceptible to price shocks. i mean, when libya, when the libya situation started and the price of oil went up $40 a barrel, that was almost a billion dollar an additional fuel bill for the navy. a billion . the only place we've got to go get that money is operations or training. so our ships steam less, our planes fly less. we train our sailors and marines less. >> more with the 75th navy secretary ray mabus sunday night at 8:00 eastern. >> each week, american history tv sits in on a lecture with one of the country's college professors. you can watch the classes here every saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern and sundays at 11:00 a.m. naugatuck valley community college professor william foster teaches an english class in which students investigate relationships between literature and society. in this lecture, professor

foster discusses the history of the use of the n word in american literature and culture. with a focus on uncle tom's cabin" by harriet beecher stow and "adventures of huckleberry finn"" by mark twain. naugatuck community college is located in waterbury, connecticut. also please note some viewers may find language in this hour long program offensive. >> good afternoon, class. today we're in english 102, composition and literature. we're going to be talking about two different things. we're going to start off our discussion talking about the use of the n word in both harriet -- don't even try it, harriet beecher stowe's very famous american classic uncle tom's cabin" and mark twain's huckleberry fin is correct. there has been recent controversy, please excuse me, recent controversy talking about a publisher who is changing the

"n" word to slave and changing the ininjun word to indian because obviously a number of native americans are offended by that. >> this is a controversy that's been going on since day one. these novels came out in the 1860s, and the idea is that since that point in time, there's been a little bit of controversy. so what we're going to do is start in the history because as i said many times in class, you have to have a sense of history to understand literature. if you don't understand what the people were going through, what motivated them to do what they did, it loses when we talk about poetry and drama and fiction. let's take a look at the cartoon we have on the board. it's from the "new york times" from january of this year. mark twain used the "n" word 219 times in huck fin. he was one of the 19th superintendent's greatest and a little black kid in the back says gang stag rappers because as far as he's concerned that's

the only people that would use it that many times. let's take a look at another slide and see how we go. okay. this is the video that we watched. it is ignore the promotion at the bottom. it is the "n" word, divided we stand where we were giving an opportunity to see any number. >> interpretations of the word. even if weep had no context, we still have controversy, do we not? the controversy basicallying about what? someone help me. why is the controversy about the n word? it's offensive to certain people but not to everybody. okay? we have certain audiences that think they can use it and some who don't think they can use it at all. there are many different definitions for the word. we can't just assume it only has one mean. the idea is that it's primary the one it's most known for is a derogatory term to people of

color. yes? so our discussion become less about language and more about control and power. yes? okay. that's an important conversation. it's surprising to see how history and then to literature leads us to contemporary thinking because when you think it, if i can control what you think, you can control what happens after that. the fact that we say the "n" word instead of the word nigger means that the control was already started. does it not? it is not a power. of lawyer. it's a power of social engineering, yeah? so let's take a look and see what else we have here in terms of reviewing where we've gotten to today. this is a cartoon by a good friend of mine, the strip is called secret agent man. where he's asking them about political correctness. that's going to be part of our

discussion, as well. all right? check out the dude's sneakers. he said where are the black guy in the green jacket. join the 21st century, man african-american. >> he says does that offend you. >> okay, david. he was the head of the ku klux klan. give me a break. it's more patronizing some label just for the sake of politically correct especially since i didn't peen any offense. he's saying his meaning should be taken more importantly than the word he used. thus we have the reason for using the "n" word instead of the word niggeer. how am i supposed to know that? i'm not some mind reading gypsy. >> he says that's romanian reading skrik you bigot. >> if you think how many times we change our language for fear of offending someone. part of our discussioning is we often said in our class during the 1970s and 1960s certain

words were used with fair regularity in media and print and no one was offended. we talks about all in the family" where they used nigger, wop, kike. because it sounded like another word, they didn't come after you at all. nowadays it becomes harder to explore these as language particularly in literature. >> speaking of all in the family, me and little brother used to watch that every single night. i didn't realize that it was offensive until i was like -- >> i was just thinking about all the in family". me and my brother when we were little would watch it every single night. i didn't realize that it was offensive and that they were using offensive words till i got a lot older. >> what's interesting, a lot of people when you use the word a

whole lot, you sometimes forget people may find it offensive. yeah? okay. we talked about other words that are used. we talked about other forms of censorship. it's not just about race. sometimes it's about sexuality. sometimes it's about your orientation, your sexual orientation, things we need to figure out exactly where we're going to go in terms of how we use language. let's continue on this. if you have you questions, please ask them as we go along. this is the classic illustrated version of huckleberry finn which i'm sure some of you are familiar with. it's a nice real easy to wfind out about the literary classic. you were curious in the young adult version, if they had taken the words out. careful examination and even cursory examination shows that no, they didn't. okay? i've looked at these back as far as the 1940s, 1930s, i have

editions of them because i love having classic editions of work and like to check them to see what the illustrations look like. no, nigger is still used, injun, another term was considered offensive that they changed, as well. by the way, debra, can you tell me what they're changing the "n" word to. >> slave. >> slave as if that's somehow less offensive. did i not hear you tell me you thought the word slave was more offensive than you thought the word nigger? you said you thought the word slave was more offensive? [ inaudible question ] >> because of your -- which is? thank you. it's important top have appreciation when they change the word, do you think this is the end of it? will we be changing the word again because someone's going to say that slave is too offensive.

okay. let us think about what probably one of the most interesting uses of language in our society, the names of sports teams, braves, the indians, the huskies. i'm not going to bring that up again because you know there's going to be trouble. yankees. university of massachusetts which are attended undergraduate, name of the team when i went attended college was the red men. native american. there was a time when people decided that's too offensive. they changed it to the, anyone know what the name of the umass team is now? the patriots. actually, they call them the minutemen. come on, shuttup. but the idea was, even as they changed the name from red men top minute men, i thought what are they eventually going to call it? they going to call it the whales? the snail darters.

no, they'll be offended to. when we're looking for nonoffensive language, i think we're on a slippery slope. let's take a look at a few more of these. this is a classic illustrated version of uncle tom's cabin". very clear image. you see the evil slave catcher in the background with the dog. you seep the black man coming out of the swamp, flightened. okay in probably one of the most powerful images in uncle tom's cabin if you don't get little elsa dying and going to heaven. idea is you're capturing exactly what the story is about. it's about slavery. when harriet beecher stowe wrote this story, what do you think was in her mind? was she trying to not be offensive or trying to be enlightening? what was she thinking? here we go. >> i think that he was trying to shock people and she's an

abolitionist. she was trying to slow the evils of slavery. >> absolutely. now, in her doing that, she painted -- this is an early review of her work. she painted a very, very simplistic view of slavery. you had the kind of good -- i don't know why i'm going to mr. beckette when i say that, the good slave owner and then you had the evil slave owner. okay? and you had the evil slave catcher. and that was basically what slavery was about. you never knew -- you were at the whim of somebody. it was power. okay? you were under somebody's sway. you were in fact, a slave. nothing was your own. it tells about the worst parts of slavery, okaying? what would be the worst thing then to a mother to have her child sold away from her and she did talk about that. the cover we saw -- wait a minute. there's a cover. i believe of little eva crossing the ice floe.

if you've ever been near an icy river with huge chunks of ice on it going down, now this it is literatu literature. so she's using imagery. >> earned your "a," my xwroung brother. she's using imagery. it frightens me every time i think about it. she is so frightened of being caught and her baby being sold separate from her she is jumping from one ice floe to the other to escape from free soil where she was, okay? >> she also lost her shoes and her feet are bleeding. >> her feed were bleeding as she crossed the river. >> this is the power of words that harriet beecher story was using to defense you about the evils of slavery. to take you on a mental journey. and it wasn't ta far back. even though her story was based on supposedly true events, oh, and if you didn't know this, she was challenged from day one how dare you write this horrible

stouffer slavely is not like that. save masters. so the idea was that they were offend pd that somehow she painted a picture that wasn't true. so she went out of her way several years after the publication to go and find, said these are the facts of in that was based on. she felt this ordinarily, what would ham now days? people would just ignore it, she wanted to be sure of people get an exact sense of what she was talking about. it was one of the most well read stories in america. for an america that was literal, they chewed this story up. it was a big hit overseas, okay? so even if it wasn't in the controlled environment of the north because people in the south were listening stereotype, generalization, but the idea was it was a major hit. she became independently wealthy. she had grown up dirt poor.

she became so wealthy that her needs taken care of for the rest of hadder life. she wrote other things as well, okay? and the idea was that this was the beginning. wrim not encouraged to write and have their own careers. it's so important to get a sense of the history of the time. did you have a question? >> he >> no. >> yes. >> especially focusing on the time period in itself with women writers, we so many times in literature you think about kate cho pin. -- security was their marriage. their security was in that household. and so if we're really thinking about the pivotal moment of women at that point in time, this was absolutely monumental to say the least. >> no question about it. the idea is you have to kind of get a sense what she was doing and why she was doing it.

in terms of the literary merit, thank you, i was there. i was just messing with you guys. in terms of the literary merit of her work, many people came after her for saying she created very simplistic stereotypes but that was indeed her purpose. a lot of critics dismissed there was very poor novel writing, how dare you. i understand what you're trying to do but you can do it better. i think they missed the point. she was trying to tell a story in as stark detail as she possibly could in a relief map of what happened. let's go through the major characters of uncle tom's cabin. yes? we have uncle tom. we will have little eva. everybody knows those two. uncle tom is presented as the what? who can hip we with the character analysis of uncle tom? >> protagonist. >> what are his characteristics? >> someone said.

>> very religious. okay, what else? dude, no, it counts. >> i don't know if i feed that. >> yes, you do. >> thank you. he was like she said very pious, very loyal to his master. even at the end of the book when he had la agree as his master, he said he would follow him and be loyal to him even though lee agree threatened to beat him silly. >> even when lee agree insisted he beat another slave. uncle tom said you can make me do anything but can't make me beat another slave. even today, if you use the term my boss was a simon lee agree, we have a reference idea for who that particular character is. he's an evil person. >> he's a monster. >> he's a monster. question, comment? >> he is a develop loyal man.

he would always come back into no matter how bad he was mistreated. >> toward the end of the story,ess mistreated so bad he almost forgot his beliefs in god but he just went through it and forgot about it. >> thank you. such an important stereotype one that lives so long is when you say uncle tom, at least in the '60s and '70s, you were referring to a black person that no matter what white people do, you love -- to the point your destruction. ki kind of a cold deny dem nation. >> i think that's somewhat inaccurate. >> this is good. go for it. >> i understand that uncle tom and that the term uncle tom is to portray a black person. i get that. however, he still -- he wouldn't

beat the other slaves even though lee agree wanted him to become more of a head slave in charge of the others, he wouldn't do it. and i think that he was submissive but not to the point of betraying his own people. so he still held to his beliefs. >> even if he was submissive to the point of not worrying about his own safety, he would not mistreat his own people. >> the other gentleman who was like sambo. >> you're right, it was sam bow. >> i would much rather be called an uncle tom than a sambo. >> absolutely in terms of the characteristicizations from each character. i think you're absolute right. often we look at a caricature, we don't really remember or have any idea what the original was like. okay? in fact, someone saying the situation looks like we're rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

you guys get that, right? of work with me. the idea is that why would that be considered a useless gesture? i said this is like rearranging deck chairs on the tie tannic. if you're not sure, we'll pass it down. >> someone said. >> yeah, the idea is that this as useless kind of thing. some people don't even know what the titanic was, that second movie notwithstanding. come on, every woman knows. here we go. let's move on in terms of slides so we can move onto the written notes because i want to take you someplace else. this is a book called "where did i come from," talking about young people about their own sexuality written by several young men who got tired of not having the issue being confronted directly. did not have very graphic drawings in this class. they explained the act of sexual

congress as when two people love each other. they always kept it in an emotional frame. this book outraged many groups. this is about the "n" word. how dare you take the power out of my hands to tell my child what sex is and draw pictures and have words to go with it. this was an important book. i loved had book but thin i'd rather know than not know. i do have appreciation there are many people in our society who would rather not know than know. okay? and this is perhaps the core of our discussion. do we, in fact -- and this is linked surprisingly to another topic, prohibition, do we in fact say because there are two guys that we say nobody in here can drink anymore legally? so the same thing goes when we have a discussion of sexuality. i'm not going to ask how many of you guys had that book income

while where they took the boys in one room and the girls in the other and showed that horrible video that i still have nightmares about right now? still trying to get those images out of my head. no, not mom and dad. it's about power, is it not? who has the right to share this information? society? the government? school board? of okay. how was that discussion related to what happens with the n word, uncle tom's cabin and huckleberry finn? if the book isened fooing you as a teacher, i can't read this book to my children. this book is horrible. look at this, it says n word right in front of it. i don't have any black children in my class but it would be wrong to teach that book to my stupids. how do you resolve that? >> yes, please. >> well, you can resolve it by giving them the history of the word to make it, tell them why

it offends you and why you at first didn't want to teach it because then they can realize what it actually means to you and not just seeing the word and thinking their own thought about it. >> thank you. the idea is that now you're thinking as a teacher who wants to address the issue head-on. it's also possible for people to try to duck the issue as well, yes? so if you're the school librarian, not you it, her, if you're the school librarian and you had this book on the shelf, elementary school, yeah, let's make it hard for you, it's an elementary school, what are you going to doing? ah, there's a microphone right for you. >> i guess i would just warn them first about what the book's about and tell them what the word means so they don't misuse it. >> so you wouldn't take it off shelf? okay. all right. >> in the restricted section. >> in the restricted ekz of the free public library? speaking of irony. oh, my god.

look. >> [ inaudible question ]. i mean, i really don't think children have any you know, they shouldn't be reading this book in the first place. >> gasp. >> only because twain himself said in a. >> just a second. we're working with equipment. stay tuned folks, we'll be right back. check, check. >> thank you, gentleman. >> all right. twain said himself in defense of the brooklyn public library banned his book saying it was crude. and they shouldn't be read by children. >> ah. >> twain said himself he never meant the book -- he wrote the book for adults. he never meant for children to read it. he said he -- yeah, he just basically said that he wrote it for adults and he -- he looked down on any guardian that would let their children read his book.

because as i an child, i guess apparently his guardians let him read a unsense scored version of the bible and it kind of stuck with him and like kind of -- yeah, it just messed him up. >> curious. i got to tell you, those stories of hell and brim fire kept me straight. the story of jezebel being trampled by horses and the only thing left were the palms of her hands and soles of her feet kept me straight for many a year. of he does have a point. >> i just wanted to comment on that. even though he didn't want younger viewers to read it, i still think that was a major part of the reason why the book was so huge and the effect it had on society because not only were adults reading it, but younger ainged people were reading it also. you know, maybe like teenagers and then a little younger. so it had an effect on society because they're the upcoming new world. so they were able to read the

book and interpret their own thought, not what their parents think. so really even though he didn't want kids to read it, i believe that the younger crowd was the one to make it really a hit. >> thank you. i think this is an important part about that as well is that it was the first huckleberry fn, first american novel, the first one ever brin on a typewriter, it is was the first one that was in jargon and supposedly written by a young person. so two total different perspectives add the to the pantheon of american litly which is just amazing. if you listen to it, on tape or you hear an actor do the part of huck finn, it's just amazing. now we make fun of everybody. if somebody speaks with a southern accent, we think that's hilario hilarious. the original title was the auto boofgraphy of huck fin. he changed it several times.

it's just amazing to me. it gives me a chance as someone from contemporary times to place literally myself in the body of a young man who is my age even though his background and experience is totally different than mine. okay? this is also the cover of tom sawyer from the il straight comic series. and this one here it, "happy to be nappy" relates to our conversation about censorship and images and symbolism correlating to race. happy to be nappy, bell hooks. love her work. the book issing about a young girl who wonders in the glories of the wonders of her hair. this goes yound the certain shock jock who used the word nappy in a very negative term and got fired and got rehired by everybody else. inch this particular instance, the woman who brought this to

her classroom, a school each in new york, remember discussing this, school teacher who is white and god knows we have to mention that for the sake of the attorney brought it to her mostly urban students and said this is a book i want you to read to talking about how you should promote yourself in a positive way. next phase what happens is the parents of some of the black children and here's the part that always makes me kind of like my eyebrows go to the top of my head, hadn't even read the back. the only thing they heard was what word? nappy. >> okay, nappy. oh, that's so negative. then they understand that the teach is white. so now, you have no right to discuss with my black child, okay, how do you know she wasn't already glorying in the color of her hair. now they're upset and offended by the white teacher. what happens as a result? there is a referendum.

and i'm being polite. i believe the word is can ga root court held at the school. principal, members of the school board, parents, teacher. it is out of control. it is accusatory. it is finger pointing. okay? it is almost a physical attack on the teacher. how dare you. now, not to their credit, the school officials and administrators do not support the teacher. she gets fired. for presenting what she thought was a positive role model to her students. the story gets out to the media. suddenly they don't look so good. they invite the teacher back. and you as a teacher say. >> nothing. >> that's right. okay. and i would -- personally, i'd do the same thing. you capital support me when the heat's on, obviously i can't trust you. it's a sad story.

it should have had a much more positive ending. there should have been end ugh. here's where i go as a teacher, you should have read the darn book. and then the controversy would be over. but no, couldn'tent be bothered with that. went immediately to a knee jerk reaction, racial stereotyping and away we go. same sort of thing that people are afraid of happening with what? and these are nice additions to, van nap white for you. so the idea is that when we're talking about this we're not talking about an issue that's just about these two books. we're talking about an issue that has not gone away. sadly, one of the unique and terrible things about our hire tanl as americ-- heritage as ams in languaging is one of those places where weigh find out exactly how strong that bond still is. so i think i'm about done with these. do i see a hand? i thought i saw a hand for a