I feel like, to answer this question, it’s very dependent on who the language is offending, the context of the work, and the importance of the language to the work. If I had to choose, however, I’d say keeping authentic language whether offensive or not is important in preserving historical context and characterization.
If we begin to scrub away all offensive language in literature, many pieces of work lose their depth. Offensive language is part of our history, and sugarcoating or painting over all bodies of work is a way of erasing that history a history that has too much depth to ignore.
While I understand that it may make people uncomfortable, literature is a form of art, and art can make you uncomfortable. It can make you think, and most importantly, it can spark conversation. Literature, like A Good Man Is Hard to Find, opens the door for discussions that need to be had rather than glossing over them and pretending this isn’t a part of American history.
The “offensive language” in A Good Man Is Hard to Find holds so much depth that, through the grammar and word choices, we gain a better understanding of how complex the character is. It also helps establish the timeline. While it isn’t the basis of the story, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the characters and their world.
Tianna Gonzalez I entirely agree while I do believe the language can be offensive censorship is very harmful especially when dealing with literature. Instead of being used as a tool to not offend I feel like censorship is used as a way of glossing over history and not acknowledging what we’ve been through.
That’s another great point that I also tried to touch on literature that uses uncomfortable words can sometimes spark very important conversations that need to be had. Erasing them from all literature, erases the opportunity to have these conversations in many classrooms..
One thought on “Week 9 Tahj Young”
Hey Tahj, I love your take on this topic and it resonates a lot with me. As a person of color coming to America and learning of slavery, especially after the BLM movement, felt honestly gut-wrenching, as in schools they do teach the more watered down versions and instances of racism. It was honestly even worse when so many people were in genuine denial that this sort of racism and thinking was still around in our day and age. Which is why I completely agree that simply censoring the word is careless and does take away from what the author is trying to convey. It also doesn’t give an accurate take on the world and the questions we need to ask ourselves and each other.