54 pages • 1 hour read
The Day They Came to Arrest the Book
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Background
Historical Context: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Controversy
Since its release in 1884, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been a controversial book. The 1944 biopic The Adventures of Mark Twain features a scene in which Twain’s wife and other senior advisors try to persuade him not to publish Huckleberry Finn. The movie portrays the book’s sympathetic treatment of a runaway slave as the source of their concern, as Twain’s advisors fear Twain would permanently lose his Southern readers. Northern readers rejected the book as well. The Day They Came to Arrest the Book references a real criticism from the 1885 Boston Transcript newspaper:
The Concord [Massachusetts] Public Library committee has decided to exclude Mark Twain’s latest book from the library. One member of the committee says that, while he does not wish to call it immoral, he thinks it contains but little humor, and that of a very coarse type. He regards it as the veriest trash (89).
Neither of these issues stirred the controversy Hentoff describes at George Mason High School. In the novel, the book’s frequent use of the n-word and descriptions of the demeaning treatment of Black people in the South pre-Civil War result in a group of predominantly Black parents and students calling for the censorship of Huckleberry Finn. The outrage portrayed in the book is not unrealistic. In 2022, Marshall University published a list of public schools in the US that either banned, restricted, or challenged the presence and use of Huckleberry Finn. Over the previous 20 years, 20 different school districts experienced a controversy similar to Hentoff’s fictionalized version, typically centering upon the use of racial epithets and the treatment of enslaved people as depicted in Twain’s book (Marshall Libraries: Banned Books 2022).
Hentoff intentionally puts his novel in a position identical to that of Huckleberry Finn in that there is pervasive use of the n-word throughout. This adds a layer of metafiction to Hentoff’s novel; anyone who argues that Twain’s book must be censored or banned must also say the same about Hentoff’s book, which emphasizes constitutionally guaranteed human rights. Like Huckleberry Finn, Hentoff’s novel expresses powerful truths about personal liberties and freedom. By extension, Hentoff defends Twain’s book, implying that Twain’s words must not be censored either, but instead judged by each individual reader.
Sociohistorical Context: Changes in Racial Sensitivity
In the decades following its publication in 1982, Hentoff’s book has been a catalyst for the study and discussion of free speech. This is largely because of shifting cultural sensitivity concerning the use of the n-word. While Americans have understood for centuries that the n-word is a racial epithet, its use has only recently been deemed unacceptable in virtually all social settings. Mainstream network television programs and motion pictures occasionally used the n-word in the 1960s and 70s. In 1974, the white individuals who created the movie Blazing Saddles used the word throughout; Black comedian Richard Pryor won an Emmy for his 1976 comic album Bicentennial N*****. This was the period when adjectives for describing Black Americans shifted from “Negro,” to “Afro-American,” to “African American,” and ultimately to “Black American.”
The public use of this expletive today, regardless of the setting, typically results in broad condemnation. Frequently, public officials lose positions of authority when their derogatory racial comments come to light. Many Black musicians and entertainers have reclaimed the word, retaining cultural permission to use it in songs and scripts. This can create a quandary for non-Black audiences who enjoy the artists’ content but want to show respect. Writing for the Chicago Tribune in 2018, William Lee describes the way that Black singers sometimes create alternative lyrics to their songs so that white listeners can sing along without offending Black listeners:
[W]hen the cool, swaggering young rapper dips his mic toward audience members in a gesture for them to finish the verse, white patrons have an important decision to make:
Do they repeat the verse that contains the most vilified word of our time, or quickly mumble it and avoid an awkward moment with any black fans? By ‘it,’ of course, I’m talking about the conversation-killing N-word (Chicago Tribune: White Rap Fans and the N-Word).
It is unknown whether the culture shift in acceptable language would have resulted in changes to Hentoff’s use of the slur if he were writing the novel today. But as the book—and Hentoff—unwaveringly stand for free speech, it is likely that Hentoff would have said that redacting his novel’s language would be the exact sort of censorship the book decries.
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