should spend our way out of trouble and spend our way into a better tomorrow. 2020 at least half of all energy that navy uses both afloat and ashore will come from fossil sources. >> navy secretary ray mabus on the reason frs a new energy standard for the fleet. >> we are too dependent on volatile places on earth to get our energy. we're susceptible to supply shocks and we're susceptible to price shocks. when libya, the libya situation started and the price of oil went up $40 a barrel. the only place we've got to go

get that money is operations or training. our ship steam less. our planes fly less. we train our sailors and marines less. professor foster discusses the use of the "n" word in american literature and culture with a focus on "uncle tom's cabin" and

"adventures of huckleberry finn". >> good afternoon. 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 "uncle tom's cabin" and "huckleberry finn". a publisher is changing the "n" word to slave and the engine word to indian. this is not a controversy that's just started. it's been going on since day

one. these novels came out in the 1860s. the idea is since that bit of time there's been a bit of controversy. many times in class, you have to have aense of history to understand literature. if you don't have a feeli really loses you. 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. as far as he's concerned that's the only people that use that way. let's take a look at another slide and see how we go. okay. this is the video that we watched. it's -- ignore the promotion at

the bottom. we will give any number of interpretations to the word. if we just went a contemporary versions of looking at how this word is used, we still have controversy. do we not? why is the controversy about the "n" word. it's offensive to certain people but not everybody. we have certain audiences that think they can use it. we also got a chance to see there's many different definitions for the word. we can't just assume it only has one meaning. the primary, is a derogatory term to people of color. yes? we can say black people. i'm sure we'll be okay. it's the idea of who can use the word. our discussion becomes less about language and more about control and power. yes? it's an important conversation.

it's surprising to see how history and then to literature leaves us to contemporary thought because when you think it, if i can control what you think, i can control what happens after that. the fact that we say the "n" word instead of the word nigger, means the control has started. it's not a power of law, it's a power of social engineering. let's see what else we have here. things we're looking at in terms of reviewing where we have gotten to today. this is cartoon by a friend of mine. this is secret asian man. check out the sneakers. he said where the black guy in the green jacket. he has a black friend.

he said okay david duke. give me a break. it's more patronizing to use a label for being p.c., politically correct. he's saying his meaning should be taken more toward the word. you have to be sensitive to those might be offended. we have the reason for using the "n" word instead of the word nigger. he said how am i supposed to know that. if you stop and think about how many times we change our language for fear of offending someone. part of our discussion will be about that as well. we have said during the 1970s and '60s was used with fair regularly and no one was

offended. these are kpaexamples of open derogatory terms. no one came after you because it sounded like another word. now days it backs harder to explore the words. >> we used to watch that every single night. i didn't realize it was offensive. i was just thinking about "all in the family". me and my brother would watch it every single night. i didn't realize it was offensive or they were using offensive words until i got older. >> when you use the word a whole lot, you forget that there are people who may find it offensive. yeah? we talked about other words that are used. we talked about other forms of sensorship. it's not just about race but

sometimes it's sexuality. all those are things that we need to figure out where we're going to go terms of how we use language. let's continue on this. if you have questions, ask them as we go along. this is the classic illustrated version of huckleberry finn. you said you were curious in the youth version or young adult version if they had taken the words out. careful examination shows they didn't. i think it was another term they considered offensive that they

changed as well. can you tell me what they're changing the word to. what are they changed it to? slave. did i not hear you tell me you thought the word slave was more offensive? thank you. it's important to have an appreciation when they change the word, do you think this is the end of it? someone will say that slave is too offensive. let us think about one of most interesting names in our society. the names of sports teams. the braves, indians. the huskies.

i'm not going to bring that up again. yankees. not so bad. university of massachusetts where i attended, the name of the team when i attended college was the redmen. native american. it was a time that people decided that's too offensive. they changed it to the -- anyone know the name of the team? the patriots. the idea was that i was wondering even if they change the name the redmen as minutemen. are they going to call it the whales? that's an unoffensive creature floating. the snail daughters. that would be wrong too. the idea is we're looking for nonoffensive language, i think we go on a slippery slope. this will be part of our discussion as well. wo

we'll go on to my notes on the board. very clear image. you see the evil slave watcher in the background. you see the black man coming out of the swamp frightened. when the story was written, what do you think was in her mind? was she trying to not be offensive? >> i think she was trying to shock people. she's trying to show the slavery, the evils of slavery. >> absolutely. thank you. 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 evil slave owner and the evil slave catcher. that's what slavery was about. you were at the whim of somebody. it was power. you were, in fact, a slave. nothing was your own. it tells about the worst parts of slavery. what would be the worst thing to a mother to have her child sold away from her. okay. she did talk about that. the cover we saw. this is literature. she's using -- >> imagery. >> earned your "a".

it frightens me. she's so frightened of being caught and sold down the river that she's jumping from one ice flow to the other to escape to free soil from where she was. >> she also lost her shoes and her feet were bleeding. her feet was bleeding as she crossed the river. this is the were used to convince you about the evils of slavery. to take you on a middle journey back in time. it wasn't that far back. even though her story was based on true events. if you didn't know this, she wa. how dare you write this horrible story. slavery is not like that. slave masters. the idea is they were offended. somehow she paiat wn't true. she went out of her way several years after the publication to

go and find. these are the facts it was based on. people just ignore it, soar group, shut up. she wanted to be sure that people got a sense of exactly what she was talking about. it was one of the most well read stories in america. for an america that was literate, they chewed this story up. it was a big hit overseas. it was major hit. she became so wealthy that her e rest of her life. she wrote other things as well. the idea was this with the enco

write. >> kate wrote a story where she thinks her husband dies. their security was their marriage. >> you have to get a sense of what she was doing and why she was doing it. many people came after her

saying she created simplistic stereo types. 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 help me 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 legree 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 legree, 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 loyal man. he would always come back into no matter how bad he was mistreated. >> toward the end of the story, he was 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 loved and worshipped them to the point your destruction. kind of a cold denies 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 legree 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 characterizations 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 titanic. 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 movitw come on, every woman knows. don't try to front with me. 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. 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? how was that discussion related to what happens with the n word, uncle tom's cabin and huckleberry finn? if the book isn't fooling 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 students. 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 section of the free public library? speaking of irony. oh, my god. >> i really don't think children have any -- 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 an uncensored 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 aged 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 finn, first american novel, the first one ever written on a typewriter, it was the first one that was in jargon and supposedly written by a young person. so two total different perspectives add to the pantheon of american literature, 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 hilarious. the original title was the autobiography of huck finn. 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 illustrated 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 is about a young girl who wonders in the glories of the wonders of her hair. this goes beyond the certain shock jock who used the word nappy in a very negative term and got fired and got rehired by somebody else. in 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 book. 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 kangaroo court held at 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.