A Disintegrating Tower of Babel.
Paul Craig Roberts
On August 24 the New York Times asked if we should read Mark Twain’s book, Huckleberry Finn? The writer, Sam Sifton, gives pros and cons. https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260824&instance_id=180840&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=the-morning&paid_regi=0&productCode=NN®i_id=319886775&segment_id=225312&sendId=225312&uri=nyt://newsletter/e3bcab9b-f358-58a8-9cfd-f3a9bd5dd796&user_id=16e8eb830e4bd362dd416f1daa9d25b1
Sifton says that reading the book in prep school in NY City made him uncomfortable because the racial slur “nigger” appears more than 200 times. On the other hand, he quotes the literary critic Ruth Franklin who says the novel should still be taught because it is uniquely able to convey the structures of racism embedded in American society.
In other words, it is another weapon in the white liberal’s arsenal to prove that America is racist as the NY Times 1619 Project maintains.
Notice that for Sifton and Franklin, the proof of racism is the use of the word “nigger.” As is universal among white people today, the use of this word imputes racism. This false imputation shows the ignorance of white people who have never lived among blacks, as Southern people have.
Black Americans were commonly present in our homes, as Hispanics are today in many American homes. They helped with household cleaning, with meal preparation, with caring for and raising children. You don’t employ people in these intimate roles whom you despise.
Anyone who has ever lived among blacks, at least in the South, knows that “nigger” is the term they use to address one another. When white people used the term, it was just an act of using black Americans own language. If the term “nigger” is derogatory, why do black Americans use it to refer to one another?
When I was growing up, “nigger” was regarded as a term used by black Americans indicating familiarity. We were instructed to use more formal terms such as “colored person” or “negro,” both being terms used by negro organizations at the time. As I recall, the problem of a white person using “nigger” was that it was an assertion of familiarity that was limited to the race.
In the 1980s and 1990s I relied on a black American woman to help run my household and to help raise a child. Her husband had a career as a US Army Sargent, and she was a formidable character. She called all of her relatives and friends “nigger.”
Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884. By the 1980s “nigger” was a forbidden word, worse than the F-word. I questioned Vivian. She said, “that’s just what we call each other.”
Recently I heard from a reader who said he had just heard several black Americans referring to one another as “niggers.” The reader was astonished, because he knew if he used the word in reference to a black American it would be considered hate speech and would have consequences for him. He said that race now determined what words you could use.
This shows how false is the racist paradigm of America created by white liberals.
My lifelong experience with white liberals is that they are overflowing with their moral superiority. They see themselves as free of racism, which they tried to limit to Southern whites. But having taught racial hatred, their students include all whites as racists. The white northern liberals are ensnared in the concept of “aversive racism.” They are ensnared in the NY Times “1619 Project,” which says America was racist long before there were any Southern cotton plantations.
The racist interpretation of America is a false narrative. It has created racial disunity between black and white Americans, and has helped to transform America into a disintegrating Tower of Babel.