Classrooms Grapple With Racial Slurs In Classic American Novels – By Thomas Urbain (IB Times) / June 27 2021
The recent dismissal of a white New York professor for reading aloud the “N-word” from a Mark Twain novel has shone a spotlight on the use of racial slurs in American classrooms.
It has renewed a long-standing debate about how books from some of the United States’ most famous authors should be taught during an age of reckoning with racial injustice.
After years of hearing the term read from the texts of writers such as Twain and William Faulkner, students are increasingly taking a stand.
“There was no reason that I should have to go to my class and hear that slur,” said Dylan Gilbert recalling the time in 2019 when her white English teacher at the University of Michigan uttered the term while reciting a passage from Faulkner.
CONTINUE > https://www.ibtimes.com/classrooms-grapple-racial-slurs-classic-american-novels-3236501
